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THE 


AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE 


A ROMANCE 
OF 


CONTEMPORANEOUS ANTIQUITY 


BY 


THOMAS A. JANVIER 


NEW YORK AND LONDON 
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS’ 


THE Aztec TREASURE-HOUSE 
Copyright, 1890, by Harper & BrorHers 
Copyright, 1918, by Mrs. CatHEerine A. Janvier 
Printed in the United States of America 
I=-C 


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Jaan 


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1 


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Ga apn ohan | 


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2 


Ss 


Departimiento y ha entre los engafios. Catales y ha que son 
buenos, e tales que malos, e buenos son aquellos que los omnes fazen 
a buena fe e a buena intencion.—ALonzo EL Sasro, Setena Partida, 
Titulo xvi., Ley ii. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAP. PAGE, 
BLAM Cage Fes ee ee Gere OL FOB 
ROPRA TRAN TUNIC GP Se ee i SO ORIG 
i) THE CACIQUES SECRET . 1. 1 2) 6 4s fe G88 
‘11. THE MONK’S MANUSCRIPT. « §. 5 15. s » 48 
IV. MONTEZUMA’S MESSENGER ........ Oo 
V. THE ENGINEER AND THE LOST-FREIGHT MAN. ._ 67 
Niet snind e SYMBOL POW eRe Oe Ae a 98 
Wite'rae® SIGHT INTHE CANON -§ i. 8 OV 2 9 
Wi eRe Pit et 8, Ae ae ae 108 
kee CAV ROF THE DEAD (eo he ew ee 109 
Perera WiGING STATUB’ . «© 1. « 6) ee Yi. 119 
it ee EI CITY) So. wl we ew Uw Cf 129 
mi tee eae VALI“Y OF DEATH .°. 1 6 lw le lt 6140 
Br ures GCHAC-MOOL STAIR » . »« « 6 « » « 152 
Mave tue HANGING CHAIN . 94 -. 1 «© «© «© «© « » 161 
MV tee TEMPLE IN THE CLOUDS”... « « « ». 174 
Rye re OBAGRED PASG.° .). «4 sa te ww ew 1ST 


XVII. OF OUR COMING INTO THE VALLEY OF AZTLAN . 198 


KVIII. THE. STRIKING OF A MATCH. .. ..e 2 « 208 
Sie Tet BENDS OF REVOLT =... . 6 «© « «© « 218 
XX. THE PRIEST CAPTAIN’S SUMMONS ...... 229 


XXKI. THE WALLED CITY OF CULHUACAN .... . 239 


Vv lil 


CHAP 


CONTENTS. 


XXII. THE OUTBREAK OF REVOLUTION . 


XXIII. 
XXIV. 
xXXV. 
XXVI. 
XXVII. 
XXVIII. 
XXIX., 


XXX. 


XXXII. 
XXXII. 
XXXII, 
XXXIV. 
XXXYV. 
XXXVI. 
XXXVII. 


XXXVIII. 


A “RESCUBV @susswers suru nine 


° 


THE AFFAIR AT THE WATER-GATE 


THE GOLD-MINERS OF HUITZILAN. 


THE GATHERING FOR WAR. 
AN OFFER OF TERMS. . . 
THE SURRENDER OF A LIFE 
THE ASSAULT IN THE NIGHT 
THE FALL OF THE CITADEL. 
DEFEAT! oi Sal ee ee 
EL SABIO’S DEFIANCE. . 


IN THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE 


A MARTYRDOM. .: . « 
THE TREASURE-CHAMBER 


° 


THE VENGEANCE OF THE GODS 


THROUGH DARKNESS TO LIGHT 


A 


KING CHALTZANTZIN’S TREASURE. 


EPILOGUE 9 ’ ° ° a eo ° 


e 


Who'd hear great marvels told— 
Come listen now / 

Who longs for hidden gold— 
Come listen now / 

Who joys in well-fought fights, 

Who yeurns for wondrous sights, 

Who pants for strange delights— 
Come listen now ! 


For here are marvels told 
To listen to! 
Here tales of hidden gold 
To listen to! 
Here gallant men wage fighis, 
Here pass most wondrous sights, 
Here’s that which ear delights 
To listen to! 


THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


PROLOGUE. 


“Gop sends nuts to them who have no teeth:” 
which ancient Spanish proverb of contrariety comes 
strongly to my mind as I set myself to this writing. 

By nature am I a studious, book-loving man, having 
a strong liking for quiet and orderliness. Yet in me 
also is a strain that urges me, even along ways which 
are both rough and dangerous, to get beyond book- 
knowledge, and to examine for myself the abstractions 
of thought and the concretions of men and things out 
of the consideration whereof books are made. And I 
hold that it is because I have thus sought for truth in 
its original sources, instead of resting content with 
what passes for truth, being detached fragments of 
fact which other men have found and have cut and 
polished to suit themselves, that I have gathered to 
myself more of it, and in its rude yet perfect native 
crystals, than has come into the possession of any 
other modern investigator. In making which strong 
assertion I am not moved by idle vanity, but by a just 
and reasonable conception of the intrinsic merit of 
my own achievement: as will be universally admitted 


14 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


when I publish the great work, now almost ready for 
the press, upon which, in preparatory study and in 
convincing discovery, I have been for the past ten 
years engaged. For I speak well within bounds when 
I declare that a complete revolution in all existing 
conceptions of American archeology and ethnology 
will be wrought when Pre-Columbian Conditions on 
the Continent of North America, by Professor Thomas 
Palgrave, Ph.D. (Leipsic), is given to the world. 

Upon this work I say that I have been engaged for 
ten years. Rather should I say that I have been en- 
gaged upon it for forty years; for its germs were im- 
planted in me when I was a child of but six years old. 
Before my intelligence at all could grasp the meaning 
of what I read, my imagination was fired by reading 
in the pages of Stephens of the wonders which that 
eminent explorer discovered in Yucatan; and my mind 
then was made up that I would follow in his footsteps, 
and in the end go far beyond him, until I should re- 
veal the whole history of the marvellous race whose 
mighty works he found, but of whose genesis he could 
only feebly surmise. And this resolve of the child be- 
came the dominant purpose of the man. In my col- 
lege life at Harvard, and in my university life at 
Leipsic, my studies were directed chiefly to this end. 
Especially did I devote myself to the acquisition of 
languages, and to gaining a sound knowledge of the 
principles of those departments of archsology and 
ethnology which related to the great work that I had 
in view. Later, during the ten years that I occupied 
(as I believe usefully and acceptably) the Chair of 


PROLOGUE. 15 


Topical Linguistics in the University of Michigan, all 
the time that I properly could take from my profes- 
sorial duties was given exclusively to the study of the 
languages of the indigenous races of Mexico, and to 
what little was to be found in books concerning their 
social organization and mode of life, and to the broad 
subject of Mexican antiquities. By correspondence I 
became acquainted with the most eminent Mexican 
archeologists —the lamented Orozco y Berra, Icaz- 
balceta, Chavero, and the philologists Pimentel and 
Pefiafiel ; and I had the honor to know personally the 
American archeologist Bandelier, the surpassing scien- 
tific value of whose researches among the primitive 
peoples of Mexico places his work above all praise. 
And by the study of the writings of these great schol- 
ars, and of all writings thereto cognate, my own knowl- 
edge steadily grew; until at last I felt myself strong 
enough to begin the investigations on my own account 
for which I had sought by all these years of patient 
preparation fittingly to pave the way. 

But inasmuch as my life until a short time since has 
been wholly that of a scholar, and wholly has been 
passed in quiet ways, I truly have had no teeth at all 
for the proper cracking of the nuts which have come 
to me in the course of the surprising adventures that I 
have now set myself to narrate. For in the course of 
these adventures (necessarily, yet sorely against my 
will) I have been thrust by force of circumstances into 
many imminent and prodigious perils; much time that 
I gladly would have devoted to peaceful, fruitful study 
I have been compelled to employ in rude and profitless 


16 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


(except that my life was saved by it) battling with 
savages; and—what most of all has pained me—many 
curious and interesting skulls that I gladly would have 
added entire to my collection of crania, I have been 
driven in self-defence to ruin irreparably with my own 
hands. 

All of which diversities of my likings and my hap- 
penings will appear in due order, as I tell in the follow- 
ing pages of the strange and wonderful things which 
befell me—in company with Rayburn and Young and 
Fray Antonio and the boy Pablo—in our search after 
and finding of the great treasure that was hidden, in a 
curiously secret place among the Mexican mountains 
more than a thousand years ago, by Chaltzantzin, the 
third of the Aztec kings. 


I. 
FRAY ANTONIO. 


My heart was light within me as I stood on the 
steamer’s deck in the cool gray of an October morn- 
ing, and saw out across the dark green sea and the 
dusky, brownish stretch of coast country the snow- 
crowned peak of Orizaba glinting in the first rays of 
the rising sun. And presently, as the sun rose higher, 
all the tropic region of the coast and the brown walls 
of Vera Cruz and of its outpost fort of San Juan de 
Ulua were flooded with brilliant light—which sudden 
and glorious outburst of radiant splendor seemed to 


FRAY ANTONIO. 17 


me to be charged with a bright promise of my own 
success. 

And still lighter was my heart, a week later, when 
I found myself established in the beautiful city of Mo- 
relia, and ready to begin actively the work for which 
I had been preparing myself—at first unconsciously, 
but for ten years past consciously and carefully—al- 
most all my life long. 

Morelia, I had decided, was the best base for the 
operations that I was about to undertake. My main 
purpose was to search for the remnants of primitive 
civilization among the more isolated of the native 
Indian tribes ; and out of the fragments thus found, 
pieced together with what more I could glean from 
the early ecclesiastical and civil records, to recreate, 
so far as this was possible, the fabric that was de- 
stroyed by the Spanish conquerors. Nowhere could 
my investigations be conducted to better advantage 
than in the State of Michoacan (of which State the 
city of Morelia is the capital) and in the adjacent 
State of Jalisco; for in this region tribes still exist 
which never have been reduced to more than nominal 
subjection, and which maintain to a great extent their 
primitive customs and their primitive faith, though 
curiously mingling with this latter many Christian ob- 
servances. Indeed, the independence of the Indians 
of these parts is so notable that the proverb “ Free as 
Jalisco” is current throughout Mexico. Moreover, 
Morelia is a city rich in ancient records. The archives 
of the Franciscan province, that has its centre here, 
extend back to the year 1531; those of the Bishopric 

2 


18 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


of Michoacan to the year 1538 ; and those of the Co- 
legio de San Nicolas to the year 1540; while in the re- 
cently founded Museo Michoacano already has been 
collected a rich store of archeological material. Ina 
word, there was no place in all Mexico where my stud- 
ies and my investigations could be pursued to such 
advantage as they could be pursued here. 

From a fellow-archezologist in the City of Mexico I 
brought a letter of introduction to the director of the 
Museo, the learned Dr. Nicolas Leon; and so cordially 
was this letter worded, and so cordially was it received, 
that within the day of my coming into that strange 
city I found myself in the midst of friends. At once 
their hearts and their houses were opened to me, and 
they gave me with a warm enthusiasm the benefit of 
their knowledge and of their active assistance in for- 
warding the work that I had in hand. 

In the quiet retirement of the Museo I opened to 
that one of its members to whom the director espe- 
cially had commended me, Don Rafael Moreno, the 
purposes which I had in view, and the means by which 
I hoped to accomplish them. “Surely,” I said, “among 
the free Indians in the mountains hereabouts much may 
be found—in customs, in tone of thought, in religion 
—that has remained unchanged since the time of the 
conquest.” 

Don Rafael nodded. ‘Fray Antonio has said as 
much,” he observed, thoughtfully. 

‘‘And as your own distinguished countryman, Sefior 
Orozco y Berra, has pointed out,” I continued, “ many 
dark places in primitive history may be made clear, 


FRAY ANTONIO, 19 


many illusions may be dispelled, and many deeply in- 
teresting truths may be gathered by one who will go 
among these Indians, lending himself to their mode 
of life, and will note accurately what he thus learns 
from sources wholly original.” 

“Fray Antonio has professed the same belief,’ Don 
Rafael answered. ‘But that his love is greater for 
the saving of heathen souls than for the advancement 
of antiquarian knowledge, he long ago would have 
done what you now propose to do. He has done much 
towards gathering a portion of the information that 
you seek, even as it is.” 

“And who is this Fray Antonio, sefior ?” 

“He is the man who of all men can give you the 
wisest help in your present need. We see but little of 
him here at the Museo, though he is one of our most 
honored members, for his time is devoted so wholly to 
the godly work to which he has given himself that but 
little remains to him to use in other ways. He is a 
monk, vowed to the Rule of St. Francis. As you know, 
since the promulgation of the Laws of the Reform, 
monks are not permitted in our country to live in com- 
munities ; but, with only a few exceptions, the con- 
ventual churches which have not been secularized still 
are administered by members of the religious orders 
to which they formerly belonged. Fray Antonio has 
the charge of the church of San Francisco—over by 
the market-place, you know—and virtually is a parish 
priest. He is a religious enthusiast. In God’s service 
he gives himself no rest. The common people here, 
since his loving labors among them while the pesti- 


20 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE, 


lence of small-pox raged, reverently believe him to be 
a saint; and those of a higher class, who know what 
heroic work he did in that dreadful time, and who see 
how perfectly his life conforms to the principles which 
he professes, and how like is the spirit of holiness that 
animates him to that of the sainted men who founded 
the order to which he belongs, are disposed to hold a 
like opinion. Truly, it is by the especial grace of God 
that men like Fray Antonio are permitted at times to 
dwell upon this sinful earth.” 

Don Rafael spoke with a depth of feeling and a 
reverence of tone that gave to his strong words still 
greater strength and deeper meaning. After a mo- 
ment’s pause he resumed: ‘‘ But that which is of most 
interest to you, sefior, is the knowledge that Fray An- 
tonio has gained of our native Indians during his min- 
istrations among them. It is the dearest wish of his 
heart to carry to these heathen souls the saving grace 
of Christianity, and for the accomplishment of this 
good purpose he makes many journeys into the mount- 
ains ; ministering in the chapels which his zeal has 
founded in the Indian towns, and striving earnestly 
by his preaching of God’s word to bring these far- 
wandered sheep into the Christian fold. Very often 
his life has been in most imminent peril, for the idol- 
atrous priests of the mountain tribes hate him with a 
most bitter hatred because of the inroads which his 
mild creed is making upon the cruel creed which 
they uphold. Yet is he careless of the danger to 
which he exposes himself; and there be those who 
believe, such is the temerity with which he manifests 


FRAY ANTONIO. 21 


his zeal, that he rather seeks than shuns a martyr’s 
crown.” 

Again Don Rafael paused, and again was it evident 
that deep feelings moved him as he spoke of the holy 
life of this most holy man. “You will thus under- 
stand, sefior,” he went on, “that Fray Antonio of all 
men is best fitted by his knowledge of the ways of 
these mountain Indians to advise you touching your 
going among them and studying them. You cannot 
do better than confer with him at once. It is but a 
step to the church of San Francisco. Let us go.” 

What Don Rafael had said had opened new hori- 
zons to me, and I was stirred by strange feelings as 
we passed out together from the shady silence of the 
Museo into the bright silence of the streets: for Mo- 
relia is a quiet city, wherein at all times is gentleness 
and rest. For priests in general, and for Mexican 
priests in particular, I had entertained always a pro- 
found contempt ; but now, from an impartial source, 
I had heard of a Mexican priest whose life-springs 
seemed to be the soul-stirring impulses of the thir- 
teenth century; who was devoted in soul and in body 
to the service of God and of his fellow-men; in whom, 
in a word, the seraphic spirit of St. Francis of Assisi 
seemed to live again. But by this way coming to such 
tangible evidence of the survival in the present time 
of forces which were born into the world six hundred 
years ago, my thoughts took a natural turn to my own 
especial interests; and, by perhaps not over - strong 
analogy, I reasoned that if this monk still lived so 
closely to the letter and to the spirit of the Rule that 


22 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


St. Francis, six centuries back, gave to his order, most 
reasonably might I hope to find still quick something 
of the life that was in full vigor in Mexico only a 
little more than half that many centuries ago. 

We turned off from the Calle Principal by the little 
old church of La Cruz, and passed onward across the 
market-place, where buying and selling went on lan- 
guidly, and where a drowsy hum of talk made a rhyth- 
mic setting to a scene that seemed to my unaccustomed 
eyes less a bit of real life than a bit lifted bodily from 
an opera. Facing the market-place was the ancient 
church ; and the change was a pleasant one, from the 
vivid sunlight and warmth of the streets to its cool, 
shadowy interior: where the only sign of life was a 
single old woman, her head muffled in her rebdozo, 
praying her way along the Stations of the Cross. For 
more than two hundred and fifty years had prayer 
been made and praise been offered here; and as I 
thought of the many generations who here had minis- 
tered and worshipped—though evil hearts in plenty, 
no doubt, both within and without the chancel there 
had been—it seemed to me that some portion of the 
subtle essence of all the soul-longings for heavenly help 
and guidance that here had been breathed forth, by 
men and women truly struggling against the sinful 
forces at work in the world, had entered into the very 
fabric of that ancient church, and so had sanctified it. 

We crossed to the eastern end of the church, where 
was a low door-way, closed by a heavy wooden door 
that was studded with rough iron nails and ornament- 
ed with rudely finished iron-work; pushing which door 


FRAY ANTONIO. 23' 


open briskly, as one having the assured right of entry 
there, Don Rafael courteously stood aside and mo- 
tioned to me to enter the sacristy. 

From the shadowy church I passed at a step into a 
small vaulted room brilliant with the sunlight that 
poured into it through a broad window that faced the 
south. Just where this flood of sunshine fell upon the 
flagged floor, rising from a base of stone steps built 
up in pyramidal form, was a large cross of some dark 
wood, on which was the life-size figure of the crucified 
Christ ; and there, on the bare stone pavement before 
this emblem of his faith, his face, on which the sun- 
light fell full, turned upward towards the holy image, 
and his arms raised in supplication, clad in his Fran- 
ciscan habit, of which the hood had fallen back, knelt 
Fray Antonio; and upon his pale, holy face, that the 
rich sunlight glorified, was an expression so seraphic, 
so entranced, that it seemed as though to his fervent 
gaze the very gates of heaven must be open, and all 
the splendors and glories and majesties of paradise 
revealed. 

It is as I thus first saw Fray Antonio—verily a saint 
kneeling before the cross—that I strive to think of 
him always. Yet even when that other and darker, 
but surely more glorious, picture of him rises before 
my mind I am not disconsolate; for at such times the 
thought possesses me—coming to me clearly and ve- 
hemently, as though from a strongly impelled force 
without myself—that what he prayed for at the mo- 
ment when I beheld him was that which God granted 
to him in the end. 


Z4 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSEH. 


Some men being thus broken in upon while in the 
very act of communing with Heaven would have been 
distressed and ill at ease—as I assuredly was because 
I had so interrupted him. But to Fray Antonio, as I 
truly believe, communion with Heaven was so entirely 
a part of his daily life that our sudden entry in no- 
wise ruffied him. After a moment, that he might re- 
call his thoughts within himself and so to earth again, 
he arose from his knees, and with a grave, simple grace 
came forward to greet us. He was not more than 
eight-and-twenty years old, and he was slightly built 
and thin—not emaciated, but lean with the wholesome 
leanness of one who strove to keep his body in the 
careful order of a machine of which much work was 
required. His face still had in it the soft roundness 
and tenderness of youth, that accorded well with its 
expression of gracious sweetness; but there was a 
firmness about the fine, strong chin, and in the set of 
the delicate lips, that showed a reserve of masterful 
strength. And most of all did this strength shine 
forth from his eyes; which, truly, though at this first 
sight of him I did not perceive it fully, were the most 
wonderful eyes that ever I have seen. As I then be- 
held them I thought them black; but they really were 
a dark blue, and so were in keeping with his fair skin 
and hair. Yet that which gave them so strong an in- 
dividuality was less their changing color than the mar- 
vellous way in which their expression changed with 
every change of feeling of the soul that animated 
them. When I first saw them, turned up towards 
heaven, they seemed to speak a heavenly language full 


FRAY ANTONIO. 25 


of love; and when I saw them last, stern, but shining 
with the exultant light of joy triumphant, they fairly 
hurled the wrath of outraged Heaven against the con- 
quered powers of hell. And I can give no adequate 
conception of the love that shone forth from them 
when pitying sympathy for human sorrow, or even for 
the pain which brute beasts suffered, touched that 
most tender heart for which they spoke in tones richer 
and fuller than the tones of words. 

Don Rafael, standing without the door that he had 
opened in order that I might precede him, did not per- 
ceive that we had interrupted Fray Antonio in his 
prayers; and began, therefore, in the lively manner 
natural to him, when I had been in due form presented 
as an American archzologist come to Mexico to pursue 
my studies of its primitive inhabitants, to commend 
the undertaking that I had in hand, and to ask of Fray 
Antonio the aid in prosecuting it that he so well could 
give. 

Perhaps it was that Fray Antonio understood how 
wholly my heart already had gone out to him—as- 
suredly, later, there was such close sympathy between 
us that our thoughts would go and come to each other 
without need for words—and so was disposed in some 
instinctive way to join his purposes with mine; but, be 
this as it may, before Don Rafael well could finish the 
explanation of my wishes, Fray Antonio had compre- 
hended what I desired, and had promised to give me 
his aid. 

“The sefior already has a book-knowledge of our 
native tongues. That is well. The speaking knowl- 


26 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


edge will come easily. He shall have the boy Pablo 
for his servant. A good boy is Pablo. With him 
he can talk in the Nahua dialect—which is the most 
important, for it is sprung most directly from the an- 
cient stock. And I will arrange that the sefior shall 
live for a time in the mountains—it will be a hard life, 
I fear—at Santa Maria and at San Andrés, in which 
villages he can gain a mouth-mastery of both Otomi 
and Tarascan. A little time must be given to all this 
—some months, no doubt. But the sefor, who already 
has studied through ten years, will understand the 
needfulness of this short discipline. To a true student 
study in itself is a delight—still more that study which 
makes the realization of a long-cherished purpose pos- 
sible. The sefior, I know, reads Spanish, since so per 
fectly he speaks it”—this with a gracious movement 
of the hands and a courteous inclination of the body 
that enhanced the value of the compliment—“ but does 
the sefior read with ease our ancient Spanish script ?” 

“T have never attempted it,” I answered. “ But as 
I can read easily the old printed Spanish, I suppose,” I 
added, a little airily, “that I shall have no great diffi- 
culty in reading the old script also.” 

Fray Antonio smiled a little as he glanced at Don 
Rafael, who smiled also, and as he turned out his 
hands, answered: ‘Perhaps. But it is not quite the 
same as print, as the sefior will know when he tries. 
But it makes no difference; for what is most interest- 
ing in our archives I shall be glad—and so also will 
be Don Rafael—to aid him in reading. 

“You must know, sefior,” he went on, dropping his 


FRAY ANTONIO. ay 


formal mode of address as his interest in the subject 
augmented, and as his feeling towards me grew warmer, 
“that many precious documents are here preserved. 
So early as the year 1586 this western region was 
erected into a Custodia, distinct from the Province of 
the Santo Evangelio of Mexico; and from that time 
onward letters and reports relating to the work done 
by the missionaries of our order among the heather 
have been here received. In truth, I doubt not that 
many historic treasures are hidden here. In modern 
times, during the last hundred years or more, but little 
thought has been given to the care of these old papers 
—which are so precious to such as Don Rafael and 
yourself because of their antiquarian value, and which 
are still more precious to me because they tell of the 
sowing among the heathen of the seed of God’s own 
Word. It is probable that they have not been at all 
examined into since our learned brothers Pablo de 
Beaumont and Alonzo de la Rea were busy with the 
writing of their chronicles of this. Province—and the 
labors of these brothers ended more than two hundred 
and fifty years ago. In the little time that I myself 
can give to such matters I already have found many 
manuscripts which cast new and curious light upon 
the strange people who dwelt here in Mexico before 
the Spaniards came. Some of these I will send for 
your examination, for they will prepare you for the 
work you have in contemplation by giving you useful 
knowledge of primitive modes of life and tones of faith 
and phases of thought. And while you are in the 
mountains, at Santa Marfa and San Andrés, I will make 


28 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


further searches in our archives, and what I find you 
shall see upon your return. 

“With your permission, sefiores, I must now go 
about my work. Don Rafael knows that I am much 
too ready to forget my work in talk of ancient mat- 
ters. It is a weakness with me—this love for the 
study of antiquity—that I struggle against, but that 
seems rather to increase upon me than to be overcome. 
This afternoon, sefior, I will send a few of the ancient 
manuscripts to you. And so—until we meet again.” 


II. 
THE CACIQUE’S SECRET. 


Fray ANTONIO punctually fulfilled his promise in 
regard to the manuscripts, and I had but to glance at 
them in order to understand the smile that he had in- 
terchanged with Don Rafael when I so airily had ex- 
pressed my confidence in my ability to read them. 
To say that I more easily could read Hebrew is not to 
the purpose, for I can read Hebrew very well; but it 
is precisely to the purpose to say that I could not read 
them at all! What with the curious, involved forma- 
tion of the several letters, the extraordinary abbrevia- 
tions, the antique spelling, the strange forms of ex- 
pression, and the use of obsolete words I could not 
make sense of so much as a single line. Yet when, 
being forced into inglorious surrender, I carried the 
manuscripts to the Museo, and appealed to Don Rafael 


THE CACIQUE’S SECRET. 29 


for assistance, he read to me in fluent Spanish all that 
I had found so utterly incomprehensible. “It is only 
a knack,” he explained. “A little time and patience 
are required at first, but then all comes easily.” But 
Don Rafael did here injustice to his own scholarship. 
More than a little time and patience have I since given 
to the study of ancient Spanish script, and I am even 
yet very far from being an expert in the reading of it. 

In regard to the other promise that Fray Antonio 
made me—that he would send me a servant who also 
would serve as a practical instructor in the Nahua, or 
Aztec, dialect—he was equally punctual. While I was 
taking, in my bedroom, my first breakfast of bread and 
coffee the morning following my visit to the church of 
San Francisco, I heard a faint sound of music; but 
whether it was loud music at a distance or very soft 
music near at hand I could not tell. Presently I per- 
ceived that the musician was feeling about among the 
notes for the sabre song from La Grande Duchesse— 
selections from which semi-obsolete opera, as I then 
remembered, had been played by the military band on 
the plaza the evening before. Gradually the playing 
grew more assured; until it ended in an accurate and 
spirited rendering of the air. With this triumph, the 
volume of the sound increased greatly; and from its 
tones I inferred that the instrument was a concertina, 
and that whoever played it was in the inner court-yard 
of the hotel. Suddenly, in the midst of the musie, 
there sounded—and this sound unmistakably came 
from the hotel court-yard—the prodigious braying of 
an ass; and accompanying this came the soft sound of 


30 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


bare feet hurrying away down the passage from near 
my door. 

I opened the door and looked out, but the passage was 
empty. The gallery overlooked the court-yard, and 
stepping to the edge of the low stone railing, I beheld 
a sight that I never recall without a feeling of warm 
tenderness. Almost directly beneath me stood a small 
gray ass, a very delicately shaped and perfect little 
animal, with a coat of most extraordinary length and 
fuzziness, and with ears of a truly prodigious size. 
His head was raised, and his great ears were pricked 
forward in a fashion which indicated that he was most 
intently listening; and upon his face was an expression 
ef such benevolent sweetness, joined to such thought- 
fulness and meditative wisdom, that in my heart (which 
is very open to affection for his gentle kind) there 
sprung up in @ moment a real love for him. Sudden- 
ly he lowered his head, and turned eagerly his regard 
towards the corner of the court-yard where descended 
the stair-way from the gallery on which I stood; and 
from this quarter came towards him a smiling, pleasant- 
faced Indian lad of eighteen or twenty years old, whose 
dress was a cotton shirt and cotton trousers, whose feet 
were bare, and on whose head was a battered hat of 
straw. And as the ass saw the boy, he strained at the 
eord that tethered him and gave another mighty bray. 

“ Dost thou call me, Wise One?” said the boy, speak- 
ing in Spanish. ‘Truly this Sefior Americano is a 
lazy sefior, that he rises so late, and keeps us waiting 
for his coming solong. But patience, Wise One. The 
Padre says that he is a good gentleman, in whose serv- 


THE CACIQUE’S SECRET. 31 


ice we shall be treated as though we were kings. No 
doubt I now can buy my rain-coat. And thou, Wise 
One—thou shalt have beans!” 

And being by this time come to the ass, the boy en- 
folded in his arms the creature’s fuzzy head and gently 
stroked its preternaturally long ears. And the ass, 
for its part, responded to the caress by rubbing its 
head against the boy’s breast and by most energetically 
twitching its scrag of a tail. Thus for a little time 
these friends manifested for each other their affection; 
and then the boy seated himself on the pavement be- 
side the ass and drew forth from his pocket a large 
mouth-organ—on which he went to work with such a 
will that all the court-yard rang with the strains of 
Offenbach’s music. 

It was plain from what he had said that this was the 
boy whom Fray Antonio had promised to send to me; 
and notwithstanding his uncomplimentary comments 
upon my laziness, I had taken already a strong liking 
to him. I waited until he had played through the 
sabre song again—to which, as it seemed to me, the 
ass listened with a slightly critical yet pleased atten- 
tion—and then I hailed him. 

“The lazy Sefior Americano is awake at last, Pablo,” 
1 called. ‘Come up hither, and we will talk about 
the buying of thy rain-coat, and about. the buying of 
the Wise One’s beans.” 

The boy jumped up as though a spring had been 
let loose beneath him, and his shame and confusion 
were so great that I was sorry enough that I had made 
my little joke upon him. 


32 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE, 


“Tt is all right, my child,” I said, quickly, and with 
all the kindness that I could put mto my tones. 
“Thou wert talking to the Wise One, not to me—and 
I have forgotten all that [heard. Thou art come from 
Fray Antonio ?” 

“Yes, sefior,” he answered; and as he saw by my 
smiling that no harm had been done, he also smiled; 
and so honest and kindly was the lad’s face that I liked 
him more and more. 

“Patience for yet a little longer, Wise One,” he said, 
turning to the ass, who gravely wagged his ears in an- 
swer. And then the boy came up the stair to the gal- 
lery, and so we went to my room that I might have talk 
with him. 

It was not much that Pablo had to tell about himself. 
He was a Guadalajara lad, born in the Indian suburb 
of Mexicalcingo—as his musical taste might have told 
me had I known more of Mexico—who had drifted out 
into the world to seek his fortune. His capital was the 
ass—so wise an ass that he had named him El Sabio. 
“He knows each word that I speak to him, sefior,” 
said Pablo, earnestly. ‘‘ And when he hears, even a 
long way off, the music that I make upon the little in- 
strument, he knows that it is from me the music comes, 
and calls to me. And he loves me, sefior, as though he 
were my brother; and he knows that with the same 
tenderness I also love him. It was the good Padre 
who gave him to me. God rest and bless him always!” 
This pious wish, I inferred, related not to the ass but 
to Fray Antonio. 

“And how dost thou live, Pablo ?” I asked. 


THE CACIQUE’S SECRET, 38 


“By bringing water from the Spring of the Holy 
Children, sefior. It is two leagues away, the Ojo de 
los Santos Nifios, and El Sabio and I make thither two 
journeys daily. We bring back each time four jars of 
water, which we sell here in the city—for it is very 
good, sweet water—at three tlacos the jar. You see, 
I make a great deal of money, sefior—three reales 
a day! If it were not for one single thing, I should 
soon be rich.” 

That riches could be acquired rapidly on a basis 
of about twenty-seven cents, in our currency, a day 
struck me as a novel notion. But I inquired, gravely: 
“And this one thing that hinders thee from getting 
rich, Pablo, what is it ?” 

“Tt is that I eat so much, sefior,” Pablo answered, 
ruefully. “Truly it seems as though this belly of mine 
never could be filled. I try valiantly to eat little and 
so to save my money; but my belly cries out for more 
and yet more food—and so my money goes. Although 
I make so much, I can scarcely save a medio in a whole 
week, when what El Sabio must have and what I must 
have is paid for. And I am trying so hard to save just 
now, for before the next rainy season comes I want to 
own arain-coat. But fora good one I must pay seven 
reales. The price is vast.” 

“What is a rain-coat, Pablo?” 

“The sefior does not know? Thatis strange. It is 
a coat woven of palm leaves, so that all over one it is 
as a thatch that the rain cannot come through. What 
I was saying just now to El Sabio—” Pablo stopped 
suddenly, and turned aside from me in a shamefaced 

3 


34 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSKH, 


way, as he remembered what he also had said to El 
Sabio about my laziness. 

““__Was that out of the wages I am to pay thee 
thou canst save enough money to buy thy coat with,” 
I said, quickly, wishing to rid him of his confusion. 
And then we fell to talking of what these wages should 
be, and of how he was to help me to gain a speaking 
knowledge of his native tongue—for so far we had 
spoken Spanish together—and of what in general would 
be his duties as my servant. That El Sabio could be 
anything but a part of the contract seemed never to 
cross Pablo’s mind; and so presently our terms were 
concluded, and I found myself occupying the respon- 
sible relation of master to a mouth-organ playing boy 
and an extraordinarily wise ass. It was arranged that 
both of these dependants of mine should accompany me 
in my expedition to the Indian villages; and to clinch 
our bargain I gave Pablo the seven reales wherewith to 
buy his rain-coat on the spot. 

I was a little surprised, two days later, when we 
started from Morelia on our journey into the mountains 
to the westward, to find that Pablo had not bought 
his much-desired garment; though, to be sure, as the 
rainy season still was a long way off, there was no need 
for it. He hesitated a little when I questioned him 
about it, and then, in a very apologetic tone, said: 
‘Perhaps the sefor will forgive me for doing so ilk 
with his money. But indeed I could not help it. 
There is an old man, his name is Juan, sefior, who 
has been very good to me many times. He has given 
me things to put into this wretchedly big belly of 


THE CACIQUE’S SECRET, 35 


mine; and when I broke one of my jars he lent me the 
money to buy another with, and would take from me 
again only what the jar cost and no more. Just now 
this old man is sick—it is rheumatism, sefior—and he 
has no money at all, and he and his wife have not 
much to eat, and I know what pain that is. And so— 
and so— Will the sefior forgive me? I do not need the 
rain-coat now, the sefior understands. And so I gave 
Juan the seven redles, which he will pay me when he 
gets well and works again; and should he die and not 
pay me— Does the sefior know what I have been 
thinking? It is that rain-coats really are not very 
needful things, after all. Without them one gets wet, 
it is true; but then one soon gets dry again. But 
truly ” — and there was a sudden catching in Pablo’s 
throat that was very like a sob—“‘truly I did want one.” 

When Pablo had told this little story I did not won- 
der at the esteem in which Fray Antonio held him, 
and from that time onward he had a very warm place 
in my heart. And I may say that but for his too great 
devotion to his mouth-organ—for that boy never could 
hear a new tune but that he needs must go at once 
to practising it upon his beloved “instrumentito” un-_ 
til he had mastered it—he was the best servant that 
man ever had. And within his gentle nature was a 
core of very gallant fearlessness. In the times of dan- 
ger which we shared together later, excepting only 
Rayburn, not one of us stood face to face and foot to 
foot with death with a steadier or a calmer bravery; 
for in all his composition there did not seem to be one 
single fibre that could be made to thrill in unison with 


36 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


fear. Of his qualities as a servant I had a good trial 
during the two months that we were together in the 
mountains—in which time I got enough working knowl- 
edge of the Indian dialects to make effective the knowl- 
edge that I had gained from books—and I was amazed 
by the quickness that he manifested in apprehending and 
in supplying my wants and in understanding my ways. 

As to making any serious study of Indian customs— 
save only those of the most open and well-known sort— 
in this short time, I soon perceived that the case was 
quite hopeless. Coming from Fray Antonio, whose 
benevolent ministrations among them had won their 
friendship, the Indians treated me with a great respect 
and showed me every kindness. But I presently began 
to suspect, and this later grew to be conviction, that 
because my credentials came from a Christian priest I 
was thrust away all the more resolutely from knowl- 
edge of their inner life. What I then began to learn, 
and what I learned more fully later, convinced me that 
these Indians curiously veneered with Christian prac- 
tices their native heathen faith; manifesting a certain 
superstitious reverence for the Christian rites and cer- 
emonies, yet giving sincere worship only to their hea- 
then gods. It was something to have arrived at this 
odd discovery, but it tended only to show me how dif- 
ficult was the task that I had set myself of prying into 
the secrets of the Indians’ inner life. 

Indeed, but for an accident, I should have returned 
to Morelia no wiser, practically, than when I left it; 
but by that turn of chance fortune most wonderfully 
favored me, and with far-reaching consequences. It 


THE CACIQUE’S SECRET. 37 


was on the last afternoon of my stay in the village of 
Santa Maria; and the beginning of my good-luck was 
that: I succeeded in walking out upon the mountain- 
side alone. My walk had a decided purpose in it, for 
each time that I had tried to go in this direction one 
or another of the Indians had been quickly upon my 
heels with some civil excuse about the danger of fall- 
ing among the rocks for leading me another way. 
How I thus succeeded at last in escaping from so 
many watchful eyes I cannot say, but luck was with 
me, and | went on undisturbed. The sharply sloping 
mountain-side, very wild and rugged, was strewn with 
great fragments of rock which had fallen from the 
heights above, and which, lying there for ages be- 
neath the trees, had come to be moss-grown and half 
hidden by bushes and fallen leaves. In the dim light 
that filtered through the branches, walking in so un- 
certain a place was attended with a good deal of dan- 
ger; for not only was there a likelihood of falls lead- 
ing to broken legs, but broken necks also were an easy 
possibility by the chance of a slip upon the mossy edge 
of one or another of the many ledges, followed by a 
spin through the air ending suddenly upon the jagged 
rocks below. Indeed, so ticklish did I find my way 
that I began to think that the Indians had spoken no 
more than the simple truth in warning me against 
such dangers, and that I had better turn again while 
light remained to bring me back in safety; and just 
as I had reached this wise conclusion my feet slid sud- 
denly from under me on the very edge of one of the 
ledges, and over I went into the depth below. 


38 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


Fortunately I fell not more than a dozen feet or 80, 
and my fall was broken by a friendly bed of leaves and 
moss. When I got to my feet again, in a moment, I 
found myself in a narrow cleft in the rocks, and I was 
surprised to see that through this cleft ran a well-worn 
path. All thought of the danger that I had just es- 
caped from so narrowly was banished from my mind 
instantly as I made this discovery; and full of the ex- 
citing hope that I was about to find something which 
the Indians most earnestly desired to conceal, I went 
rapidly and easily onward in the direction that I had 
been pressing towards with so much difficulty along 
the rocky mountain-side, The course of this sunken 
path, I soon perceived, was partly natural and partly 
artificial. It went on through clefts such as the one 
that I had fallen into, and through devious ways where 
the fragments of fallen rock, some of them great mass- 
es weighing many tons, had been piled upon each other 
in most natural confusion, so as to leave a narrow pas- 
sage in their depths. And all this had been done in a 
long-past time, for the rocks were thickly coated with 
moss; and in one place, where a watercourse crossed 
the path, were smoothed by water in a way that only 
centuries could have accomplished. So cleverly was 
the concealment effected, the way so narrow and so 
irregular, that I verily believe an army might have 
scoured that mountain-side and never found the path 
at all, save by such accident as had brought me into it. 

For half a mile or more I went on in the waning 
light, my heart throbbing with the excitement of it 
all, and so came out at last upon a vast jutting prom- 


THE CACIQUE’S SECRET. 39 


ontory of rock that was thrust forth from the mount- 
ain’s face eastwardly. Here was an open space of an 
acre or more, in the centre of which was a low, altar- 
like structure of stone. At the end of the narrow path, 
being still within its shelter, I stopped to make a care- 
ful survey of the ground before me; for I realized 
that in what I was doing Death stood close at my el- 
bow, and that, unless I acted warily, he surely would 
have me in his grasp. Coming out of the shadows of 
the woods and the deeper shadows of the sunken path 
to this wide open space, where the light of the brill- 
lant sunset was reflected strongly from masses of rosy 
clouds over all the eastern sky, I could see clearly. In 
the midst of the opening, not far from the edge of the 
stupendous precipice, where the bare rock dropped 
sheer down a thousand feet or more, was a huge bowl- 
der that had been cut and squared with ineffective 
tools into the rude semblance of a mighty altar. The 
well-worn path along which I had come told the rest 
of the story. Here was the temple, having for its roof 
the great arch of heaven, in which the Indians, whom 
the gentle Fray Antonio believed to be such good 
Christians, truly worshipped their true gods; even as 
here their fathers had worshipped before them in the 
very dawning of the ancient past. 

A tremor of joy went through me as I realized 
what I had found. Here was positive proof of what I 
had strongly but not surely hoped for. The Aztec 
faith truly was still a living faith; and it followed al- 
most certainly that, could I but penetrate the mys- 
tery with which it was hedged about so carefully by 


40 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE,. 


them still faithful to it, I would find all that I sought— 
of living customs, of coherent traditions—wherewith to 
exhibit clearly to the world of the nineteenth century 
the wonderful social and religious structure that the 
Spaniards of the sixteenth century had blotted out, but 
had not destroyed. What my fellow - archeologists 
had accomplished in Syria, in Egypt, in Greece, was 
nothing to what I could thus accomplish in Mexico. 
At the best, Smith, Rawlinson, Schliemann, had done 
no more than stir the dust above the surface of dead 
antiquity ; but I was about to bring the past freshly 
and brightly into the very midst of the present, and to 
make antiquity once more alive! 

As I stood there in the dusk of the narrow path- 
way, while the joy that was in my heart swelled it al- 
most to bursting, there came to my ears the low moan- 
ing of one in pain. The faint, uncertain sound seemed 
to come from the direction of the great stone altar. 
To discover myself in that place to any of the Indians, 
I knew would end my archeological ambition very 
summarily ; yet was I moved by a natural desire to aid 
whoever thus was hurt and suffering. I stood irreso- 
lute a moment, and then, as the moaning came to me 
again, [ went out boldly into the open space, and 
crossed it to where the altar was. As I rounded the 
great stone I saw a very grievous sight: an old man 
lying upon the bare rock, a great gash in his forehead 
from which the blood had flowed down over his face 
and breast, making him a most ghastly object to look 
upon; and there was about him a certain limpness 
that told of many broken bones. He turned his head 


THE CACIQUE’S SECRET. 41 


at the sound of my footsteps, but it was plain that the 
blood flowing into his eyes had blinded him, and that 
he could not seeme. He made a feeble motion to clear 
his eyes, but dropped his partly raised arm suddenly and 
with a moan of pain. I recognized him at a glance. He 
was the Cacique, the chief, and also, as I had shrewdly 
guessed, the priest of the village—the very last person 
whom I would have desired to meet in that place. 

“ Ah, thou art come to me at last, Benito!” he said, 
speaking in a low and broken voice. “I have been 
praying to our gods that they would send thee to me 
—for my death has come, and it is needful that the 
one secret still hidden from thee, my successor, should 
be told. I was on the altar’s top, and thence I fell.” 

I perceived in what the Cacique said that there was 
hope for me. He could not see me, and he evidently 
believed that I was the second chief of the village, 
Benito—an Indian who had talked much with me, and 
the tones of whose voice I knew well. Doubtless my 
clumsy attempt to simulate the Indian’s speech would 
have been detected quickly under other circumstances, 
but the Cacique believed that no other man could have 
come to him in that place; and his whole body was 
wrung with torturing pains, and he was in the very ar- 
ticle of death. And so it was, my prudence leading 
me to speak few and simple words, and my good-luck 
still standing by me, he never guessed whose hands in 
his last moments ministered to him. 

As I raised his head a little and rested it upon my 
knee, he spoke again, very feebly and brokenly: “ On 
my breast is the bag of skin. In it is the Priest-Cap- 


42 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


tain’s token, and the paper that shows the way to where 
the stronghold of our race remains. Only with me 
abides this secret, for I am of the ancient house, as thou 
art also, whence sprung of old our priests and kings. 
Only when the sign that I have told thee of—but tell- 
ing thee not its meaning—comes from heaven, is the 
token to be sent, and with it the call for aid. Once, 
as thou knowest, that sign came, and the messenger, 
our own ancestor, departed. But there was anger then 
against us among the gods, and they suffered not his 
message to be delivered, and he himself was slain. Yet 
was the token preserved to us, and yet again the sign 
from heaven will come. And then—thou knowest—” 
But here a shiver of pain went through him, and his 
speech gave place to agonizing moans. When he spoke 
again his words were buta whisper. ‘‘ Lay me—in front 
of—the altar,” he said. ‘‘ Now is the end.” 

“But the sign? What is it? And where is the 
stronghold ?” I cried eagerly; forgetting in the intense 
excitement of this strange disclosure my need for reti- 
cence, and forgetting even to disguise my voice. But 
my imprudence cost me nothing. Even as I spoke an- 
other shiver went through the Cacique’s body; and as 
there came from his lips, thereafter forever to be silent, 
a sound, half moan, half gasp, his soul went out from 
him, and he was at rest. 

When a little calmness had returned to me, I took 
from his breast the bag of skin—stained darkly where 
his blood had flowed upon it—and then tenderly and 
reverently lifted his poor mangled body and laid it be- 
fore the altar. And so I came back along the hidden 


THE MONK’S MANUSCRIPT. 48 


path, safely and unperceived, to the village: leaving 
the dead Cacique there in the solemn solitude of that 
great mountain-top, whereon the dusk of night was 
gathering, alone in death before the altar of his gods. 


Ill. 
THE MONK’S MANUSCRIPT. 


Wuewn Pablo and I started, the day following, upon 
our return to Morelia, the village of Santa Maria was 
overcast with mourning. The Cacique was dead, they 
told us; had fallen among the rocks on the mountain- 
side, being an old man and feeble, and so was killed. 
And I was expressly charged with a message to the 
good Padre, begging him to hasten to Santa Maria that 
the dead man might have Christian burial. I confess 
that I found this request, though I promised faithfully 
to comply with it, highly amusing ; for I knew beyond 
the possibility of a doubt that if ever a man died a 
most earnest and devout heathen it was this same 
Cacique for whom Christian burial was sought; and I 
felt an assured conviction that when the services of the 
Church over him were ended—and whatever good was 
to be had for him from them secured—he would be 
buried fittingly with all the fulness of his own heathen 
rites. But this matter, lying in what I already per- 
ceived to be the very wide region between the avow- 
ed faith and the hidden faith of the Indians, was no 
concern of mine; yet I longed, as only a thoroughly 


44 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


earnest archeologist could long, to be a witness of the 
funeral ceremony in which Fray Antonio most conspic- 
uously would not take part. As this was hopelessly 
impossible—for only by very slow advances, if ever, 
could I reach again by considerate investigation the 
point that in a moment I had reached by chance— 
I came away from Santa Maria reluctantly, yet greatly 
elated by the discovery that I had made. 

So jealous was I in guarding the strange legacy that 
the Cacique had bequeathed to me that not until I was 
safe back in Morelia, in my room at the hotel, with the 
door locked behind me, did I venture to examine it. 
The bag, about six inches square, tightly sewed on all 
four of its sides, was made of snake-skin, and was pro- 
vided with a loop of snake-skin so that it might be 
hung from the neck upon the breast like a scapulary. 
My hands trembled as I cut the delicate stitching of 
maguey fibre, and then drew forth a mass of several 
thicknesses of coarse gray-brown .paper, also made of 
the maguey, such as the ancient Aztecs used. Being un- 
folded, I had before me a sheet nearly two feet square, 
on which was painted in dull colors a curious winding 
procession of figures and symbols. My knowledge of 
such matters being then but scant, I could tell only 
that this was a record, at once historical and geograph- 
ical, of a tribal migration; and I saw at a glance that 
it was unlike either of the famous picture - writings 
which record the migration of the Aztecs from Culia- 
can to the Valley of Mexico, and then about that val- 
ley until their final settlement in Tenochtitlan. I was 
reasonably confident, indeed, that this record differed 


THE MONK’S MANUSCRIPT. 45 


from all existing codices; and I was filled with what 
I hope will be looked upon as a pardonable pride at 
having discovered, within three months of my coming 
to Mexico, this unique and inestimable treasure. 

My natural desire was to carry my precious codex at 
once to Don Rafael, that I might have the benefit of 
his superior knowledge in studying it (for he had con- 
tinued very intelligently the investigation of Aztec 
picture-writing that was so well begun by the late 
Sefior Ramirez), and also that I might enjoy his sym- 
pathetic enjoyment of my discovery. As I raised the 
bag, that I might replace in it the refolded paper 
—which I already saw heralded to the world as the 
Codex Palgravius, and reproduced in fac-simile in Pre- 
Columbian Conditions on the Continent of North 
America—some glittering object dropped out of it 
and fell with a jingling sound upon the stone floor. 
When I examined eagerly this fresh treasure I found 
that it was a disk of gold, about the size and thick- 
ness of a Mexican silver dollar, on which a curious 
figure was rudely engraved. The engraving obvi- 
ously represented an Aztec name-device, the like of 
which, in the ancient picture-writings, distinguish one 
from another the several generations of a line of kings. 
This name-device was strange to me; but, as I have 
said, I had not at that time studied carefully the 
Aztec picture- writings, and there were many names 
of kings which I would not then have recognized. 
But that the gold disk was the token concerning the 
meaning of which the dying Cacique had given so 
strange a hint, I felt assured. 


46 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


Being still further gladdened by this fresh discov- 
ery, I carried my treasures at once to the Museo; and 
Don Rafael’s enthusiasm over them was as hearty as I 
could desire. Being so deeply learned in such matters, 
he was able in the “ourse of a single afternoon to ar- 
rive at much of the meaning of my codex; and his ren- 
dering of it showed that it possessed a very extraor- 
dinary historical value. In the Codex Boturini, as is 
well known, are several important lapses that neither 
that eminent scholar, nor any other archeologist whose 
conclusions can be considered trustworthy, has been 
able to supy'ly. All that reasonably can be imagined 
concerning these breaks is that the historian of the 
Aztec migration deliberately omitted certain facts 
from his pictured history. The astonishing discovery 
that Don Rafael made in regard to my codex was that 
it unqviestionably supplied the facts concealed in one 
of the longest of these unaccountable blanks. This 
was not a mere guess on his part, but a demonstrable 
certainty. On a fac-simile of the Codex Boturini he 
bade me observe attentively the pictures which pre- 
gelled and which followed the break in question; and 
then he showed me that these same pictures were the 
beginning and the ending of my own codex—obvi- 
ously put there so that this secret record might be 
inserted accurately into the public record of the wan- 
derings of the Aztec tribe. 

Further, the geographical facts set forth in the 
Codex Boturini having been very solidly establish- 
ed, it was easy to determine approximately the part 
of Mexico to which the beginning and the end of my 


THE MONK’S MANUSCRIPT. 47 


codex referred. But the migration here recorded was a 
very long one, and all that Don Rafael could say with 
certainty concerning it was that it told of far journey- 
ings into the west and north. He was much puzzled, 
moreover, by a picture that occurred about the middle 
of the codex, and that seemed to be intended to repre- 
sent a walled city among mountains. To my mind this 
picture tallied well with what the dying Cacique had 
told me touching the hidden stronghold of his race. 
But Don Rafael attached very little importance to the 
Cacique’s words; and on archeological grounds main- 
tained that a walled city was an impossibility in prim- 
itive Mexico—for while walls were built in plenty by 
the primitive Mexicans, and still are to be found in 
many places, no mention of a walled city is made by 
the early chroniclers, and of such a city there never 
has been found the slightest trace. 

In regard to the engraved disk of gold, Don Rafael 
said at once and positively that it represented a name- 
device which never had been figured in any known 
Aztec writing ; and he was of the opinion—being led 
thereto by consideration of certain delicate peculiari 
ties of the figure which were too subtle for my unis- 
structed apprehension to grasp— that the name here 
symbolized was that of a ruler who was both priest and 
king. That the piece of gold was found associated 
with picture-writing unquestionably belonging to the 
theocratic period lent additional color to this assump- 
tion. The sum of our conclusions, therefore, was that 
we had here the name-device of a priest-king who had 
ruled the Aztec tribe during some portion of the first 


48 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


migration. And, assuming that he had lived during 
the period to which my codex referred, and accepting 
the system of dates tentatively adopted by Sefior Rami- 
rez, we even fixed the ninth century of our era as the 
period in which he had lived and ruled. 

During two whole days Don Rafael and I worked 
together over these matters in the Museo; and it was 
not until our investigations were ended—so far, at least, 
as investigations could be said to be ended while yet 
no definite conclusions were reached—that my thoughts 
reverted to Fray Antonio, and to the requirement of 
courtesy that I should report to him the result of my 
course of study in the Indian tongues. It is but jus- 
tice to myself to add that, knowing him to be gone to 
Santa Maria to attend to the Cacique’s burial, I had 
temporarily dismissed this matter from my mind. 

But when I was come to the Church of San Francis- 
co—carrying with me the Codex Palgravius and the 
engraved disk of gold,in both of which I knew that 
he would take a keen interest—I had no immediate op- 
portunity of exhibiting to him my treasures. 

As I pushed open the sacristy door, when I had 
knocked upon it and he had called to me to enter, he 
came towards me at once in excitement so eager that 
his face was all lit up by it; and almost before I could 
greet him he exclaimed: “You are most happily come, 
my friend. At this very moment I was about to send 
for you; for I have found that which will stir your 
heart even as it has stirred mine. Yet perhaps,” and 
he spoke more gravely, “it will not stir your heart in 
the same way that mine is stirred by it—for if I can but 


THE MONK’S MANUSCRIPT. 49 


find the key that will unlock the whole of the mystery 
that here partly is revealed, I see before me such op- 
portunity to garner the Lord’s vintage as comes but 
seldom to His servants in these later ages of the world.” 

So strange was Fray Antonio’s manner, and so way- 
ward seemed his speech, that I was half inclined to 
think his religious enthusiasm fairly had landed him 
in religious madness; which thought must have found 
utterance in my look of doubtfulness, for he smiled 
kindly at me, and in a quieter tone went on: 

“My wits still are with me, Don Tomas; though I 
do not wonder at your thinking that I have lost them. 
Bit down here and listen to the story of my discovery; 
and when it is ended you will perceive that I very well 
may be excited by it and still be sane.” 

Being assured by this calmer speech that Fray An- 
tonio had not taken leave of his senses, I made a weak 
disclaimer, that he smilingly accepted, of my too clearly 
expressed doubts in that direction; and so seated my- 
self to listen. 

“You know, sefior,” he began, “that common report 
has declared that beneath this Church of San Francisco 
is a secret passage that extends under the city and has 
its exit in the outlying meadow-lands. I may confide 
in you frankly that this passage does exist, and that I, 
in common with all members of my Order who have 
dwelt here, know precisely where its entrance is and 
where its outlet. These matters need not be exposed, 
for they are not essential to my purpose. But you 
must know that in the midst of this passage I found 
on the day preceding vour return from the mountains 

4 


50 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSR. 


a little room of which the door was so well eoncealed 
that my finding it was the merest accident. And in 
the room, with other things which need not here be 
named, I found a chest in which are certain ancient pa- 
pers of which I have been long in search. In the ar- 
chives are frequent references to these papers—they 
are of much importance to our Order—but as with all 
my search I never could discover them, I had decided 
in my mind that in one or another of the troublous pe- 
riods that our Church has passed through they had been 
destroyed. It is plain to me now that in one of these 
periods of danger they were hidden in this safe place. 
“Some of these papers, dealing with mere matters 
of history, you will have pleasure in examining in due 
time. But that which I shall show you now, and which 
has so excited me that you not unnaturally thought that 
I had gone mad over it, has got among the rest, as I 
verily believe, by simple accident. Among the books 
and papers in the chest was a parchment case on which 
was written ‘Mission of Santa Marta,’ and the date 
‘1531.2 Within it were some loose sheets of paper on 
which were records of Indian baptisms, as is evident by 
the strange mixing of Christian and of heathen names. 
Plainly, this was the register of some mission station of 
our Order in that far-back time. But as I pried into the 
case more closely, I found, within a double fold of the 
parchment—yet not as though intentionally hidden, but 
rather as though there placed for temporary safety—a 
sealed letter directed to the blessed Fray Juan de Zu- 
marraga, who was of our Order, and who, as you know, 
was the first bishop of our holy Church in this New 


THE MONK’S MANUSCRIPT, 51 


Spain. As I drew forth the letter, the seal, that time 
had loosened, fell away and left it open in my hand. 
That this letter never until now has been read I am 
altogether confident, for the prodigy of which it tells 
would have made so great a stir that ample record 
of it would have been preserved. Nor is it difficult to 
account for the way in which it missed coming to the 
eye for which it was intended. In that early time 
many and many of our Order, going out to preach 
God’s Word among the barbarians, came happily to 
that end which is the happiest end attainable in God’s 
service: a blessed martyrdom.” Fray Antonio’s voice 
trembled with deep feeling as he spoke, and I remem- 
bered that Don Rafael had told me that this good 
brother, it was believed, himself longed for a death so 
glorious. ‘And being thus slain,” Fray Antonio in a 
moment continued, “the mission stations which they 
had established were left desolate, with what they 
held—save such few things as might be cared for by 
the savage murderers—remaining there within them. 
In later times, as the conquering Spaniards overspread 
the land, many of these stations. were found, with noth- 
ing to tell save nameless bones of those who had died 
there that God’s will might be done. 

“It is my conjecture, therefore, that this parchment 
case was found—how many years after the death of 
him who owned it, who can tell ?—in one of the many 
stations that the savages thus ravaged; that the sol- 
diers, or whoever may have found it, brought it hither, 
the nearest important abiding-place of our Order; and 
that, being carelessly examined, it was carelessly thrown 


52 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


aside when found to contain, apparently, only the little 
record of the work which our dead brother accom- 
plished before God granted him his crown of earthly 
martyrdom and so made quick his way to heaven. 
Had the letter ever reached that ‘first hand’ for which 
the writer says he waits to send it by, it assuredly 
would have come to the knowledge of the gold-loving 
Spanish. conquerors, and armies would have gone forth 
to answer it. But our dead brother, having written it 
and placed it in this fold of the parchment for safety 
until the chance to send it southward should come, was 
cut off from life suddenly; and so, of the prodigious 
marvel of which knowledge had so strangely come to 
him, only this mute and hidden record remained.” 

“But the letter itself?” I asked, with more energy 
than politeness.. ‘‘ What és the story that it contains? 
What is this mystery? Tell me of it first, and then 
explain as much as you please afterwards.” 

Fray Antonio smiled at me kindly. ‘“ Ah, you too 
are becoming excited,” he said. ‘ But, truly, it is not 
fair that I should thus have kept you waiting. In- 
deed, I am so full of it all that I forget that as yet you 
know nothing. Come out with me into the court-yard, 
where the light is stronger—for the writing is very 
faint and pale—and I will read you this letter in which 
so wonderful a story is set forth.” 

Together we passed out through a little door in the 
rear of the sacristy into what had been the inner and 
smaller cloistered court-yard of the old convent—a 
lovely place in which a fountain set in a quaint stone 
basin sparkled, and where warm sunshine fell upon the 


MONTEZUMA’S MESSENGER. 53 


rippling water and upon beds of sweet-smelling flow- 
ers. And here it was, standing among the flowers in 
the sunshine, beside the quaint fountain, that Fray An- 
tonio read to me the letter—that in this strange fash- 
ion had come to us from a hand dead for much more 
than three centuries, and that yet brought to us two a 
vital message that wholly was to shape our destinies. 


ie 


MONTEZUMA’S MESSENGER. 


Tue letter was without date, but, being addressed 
to the Bishop Zumarraga, the phrase that occurred in 
it—“ this New Spain, wherein, Very Reverend Father, 
you have labored in God’s service this year and more 
past ”’—showed that 1530 was the year in which it was 
written. As to place, there practically was no clew at 
all. The writer referred repeatedly to ‘this mission of 
Santa Marta, in the Chichimeca country ”—but the 
mission had perished utterly but a little while after it 
was founded; and at that period the term Chichimeca 
country was used by the Spaniards in speaking of any 
part of Mexico where wild Indians were. 

Being shorn of a portion of its pious verbiage, and 
somewhat modernized in style, the ancient Spanish of 
this letter contained in effect these English words : 


“Very Reverenp Fatuer,—This present letter 
will be sent forward to you by the first hand by whieh 


54 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


it may be hence transmitted; and in your wisdom, 
with God’s grace also guiding you, I doubt not that 
you will take measures for sending missionaries of our 
Order to the great company of the heathen whose 
whereabouts I am to disclose to you. And also, no 
doubt—keeping the matter secret from the pestilent 
Oidores of the Audiencia—you will communicate this 
strange matter through safe channels to our lord the 
King: that with our missionaries an army may go 
forth, and that so the great treasure of which I give 
tidings may be wrested from the heathen to be used 
for God’s glory and the enriching of our lord the 
King. 

‘“‘Know, Very Reverend Father, that a month since, 
I being then abroad from this mission of Santa Marta, 
preaching God’s word in a certain village of the Chi- 
chimecas that is five leagues to the northward, was so 
strengthened by God’s grace that many of the heathen 
professed our holy faith and were baptized. And of 
these was one who among that tribe was held a cap- 
tive. Which captive, as I found, was of the nation 
that dwelt in Tenochtitlan before our great captain, 
Don Fernando Cortés, reduced that city to submission. 
But little of earthly life remained to this poor captive 
when I, unworthily but happily, opened to him the 
way to life glorious and eternal; for in the fight that 
happened when he was captured—of which fight he 
alone of all his companions had survived—he was sore- 
ly wounded; and though in time his wounds had heal- 
ed he remained but a weakly man, and the service to 
which his captors forced him was hard. So it was 


MONTEZUMA’S MESSENGER. 55 


that I had but little more than time to put him in the 
way leading to heaven before his spirit gladly forsook 
its weary body and went thence from earth. 

“That he truly was a convert to our holy faith I 
am well assured, by the signs of a spirit meet for re- 
pentance which he showed in his own person; and still 
more by his strong longing, most earnestly expressed, 
that this same glorious faith of freedom should be 
preached to a certain great company of his people, 
whereof he most secretly told me, who still remain 
bound in the bondage of idolatry. And it is what he 
told me of these, Very Reverend Father, and of the 
marvellous hidden city wherein they dwell, and of the 
mighty treasure which there they guard, that I desire 
now to bring to your private knowledge, before it shall 
be known of by the Oidores, and through you to our 
lord the King. Here now is the whole of the mystery 
that he recited: 

“In very ancient times, he said, his people came 
forth from seven caves which are in the western re- 
gion of this continent, and wandered long in search of 
an abiding-place. And in the course of ages it came 
to pass that a certain wise king ruled over them to 
whom was given the gift of prophecy. Which king, 
by name Chaltzantzin, foretold that in the later ages 
there should come an army of fair and bearded men 
from the eastward, who would prevail over the people 
of his race: slaying many, and making of the remain- 
der slaves. Being sorely troubled by thought of what 
he thus foresaw, he set himself to provide a source of 
strength whereon his descendants in that later time 


56 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


might draw in the hour of their peril—and so save 
themselves from cruel death and from yet crueler 
slavery. ‘l'o which end, in a certain great valley that 
lies securely hidden among the mountains of this con- 
tinent, he caused to be built a walled city; and this 
city he then peopled with the very bravest and strong- 
est of his race. And he made for those dwelling there 
a perpetual law that commanded that all such as showed 
themselves when come to maturity to be weak or mal- 
formed in body, or coward of heart, then should be put 
to death; to the end that their natural increase ever 
should be of the same stout stuff as themselves, and 
also that there might be no lack of victims for the sac- 
rifices which are acceptable to their barbarous gods. 
And thus he provided that in the time of need there 
should be here a strong army of valiant warriors, ready 
to come forth to fight against the fair-faced bearded 
men, and by conquering them to save safe the land. 

‘‘And yet more provision did King Chaltzantzin 
make for the strengthening and the saving of his race 
in the later ages. Within this walled city of Culhua- 
can he caused to be builded a great treasure - house, 
wherein he garnered such store of riches as never was 
gathered together in one place since the beginning of - 
the world. And his order was that if even the power 
of the army which should go forth from that city suf- 
ficed not to conquer the foreign foemen, then should 
this vast treasure be used to buy his people’s ransom, 
that they might not perish nor be enslaved. 

“‘ Having set all which great matters in order, King 
Chaltzantzin came forth from the Valley of Aztlan, 


MONTBZUMA’S MESSENGER. 57 


leaving behind him the noble colony that he had 
there founded; and so with his people wandered va- 
grant—even as their gods had commanded that they 
should go until by a sign from heaven they should be 
shown where was to be their lasting home. And that 
the fulfilling of his purpose might be made the more 
sure, he brought his people forth from that valley by 
most perilous passes and through strait ways so that 
they might not return thither ; and that they who re- 
mained might not follow, he closed the way behind 
him with mighty bars. 

“In the fulness of time this wise king died, and oth- 
ers reigned in his stead; and at last the ages of wan- 
dering of the Aztec tribe were ended by the sign com- 
ing from heaven whereby they knew that the Valley 
of Anahuac was to be their abiding home. There 
built they the city of Tenochtitlan: which city the 
valiant captain, Don Fernando Cortés, conquered this 
short time since—and by conquest of it verified pre- 
cisely the prophecy that King Chaltzantzin uttered in 
very ancient times. 

‘“* But the captive Indian told me, further, that before 
the coming of the Spaniards there was seen the sign 
‘of warning that King Chaltzantzin had promised should 
tell when the danger that he had so well prepared for 
should be near; which sign was the going out of the 
sacred fire that the priests guarded on a certain high 
hill. Meantime, all knowledge of their brethren hid- 
den in the Valley of Aztlan for their help in time 
of peril was lost to the Aztec tribe in dim tradition; 
for the King had commanded, in order that his people 


58 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


might not fall into weakness through trusting in the 
strength of others for protection, that no open record 
of the colony that he had founded should be preserved. 
Therefore was this matter a secret known only to a 
few priests whose blood was of the royal line; in 
whose keeping, also, was the token that King Chalt- 
zantzin had commanded should be sent to the walled 
city of Culhuacan when its warriors were to be called 
forth, and a map whereby the way thither was made 
plain. And so it was that, when the sacred fire ceased 
burning, the priests were alert for the threatened dan- 
ger; and when the landing of the Spaniards—‘ fair- 
faced and bearded men, coming from the eastward ’— 
was known to them, they warned their king, Monte- 
zuma, that the prophecy was fulfilled, and that the 
time for sending for the army and the treasure had 
come. 

“For the bearer of this message was chosen a priest 
of the blood royal, with whom went also a younger 
priest, his son. And with these went a guard, whereof 
the captive Indian was one, that they might be carried 
in safety through the region where the wild Indians 
were. But the valor of the guard was useless, for the 
wild Indians set upon them in such prodigious num- 
bers—in a place not far from where is this present 
mission of Santa Marta—that all of that company, save 
only this single Indian who was wounded and made 
captive, was overpowered and slain. Yet among the 
slain, the Indian said, was not found the body of the 
priest’s son; nor was there found on the priest’s body 
the token that he had been the bearer of, nor the map 


MONTEZUMA’S MESSENGER. 59 


that showed the way. For a time the Indian had 
hoped that the younger priest had escaped out of the 
fight alive, and had carried to them who dwelt in the 
walled city of Culhuacan the message of summons; but 
as the years went onward and nothing came of it, this 
hope had died within his heart. 

“This, Very Reverend Father, is the strange story 
told me by this Indian; who spoke with the urgent 
sincerity of one devout in the Christian faith who 
knew by sensible perception that his death was near 
at hand. Eagerly he begged that to these Gentiles, 
his brethren by blood, might be sent in their secret 
fastnesses the blessed Word whereby they would be 
delivered from the chains of their idolatry into the 
freedom of Christian grace. And, surely, the treasure 
that they ward very well may be wrested from these 
heathen that it may be used in part in this land in 
God’s service, and that in part it may go to the just 
enriching of our lord the King. 

‘Nor is the matter one that is difficult of accom- 
plishment. For a token which shall give us the right 
of entry into this walled city of Culhuacan we need 
only the Word of God and a sufficient force of men 
well armed with swords and matchlocks. Nor is it 
any bar to our quest that the map showing the way 
thither has been lost. The Indian told me that this 
way is so plainly marked that one who had found it 
could not lose it again. for at spaces of not more 
than a league or two apart, upon flat places of the rock 
convenient for such purpose, was cut the same figure 
that the token of summons had engraved upon it; and, 


60 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


with this, an arrow pointing towards where the next 
carving would be found: and so these signs went on- 
ward, the heathen priest had told him, even to the 
very entrance of the Valley of Aztlan. And that this 
matter might be made sure to me, he led me to a spot 
but a league to the westward of this mission of Santa 
Marta and there showed me one of these signs, with 
the pointing arrow carved also on the rock beside it— 
of all of which the drawing here made is an indifferent 
good copy. And by that guiding arrow we went on- 
ward to another like carving at a little less than two 
leagues away to the northward. Therefore, Very Rev- 
erend Father, I, of my own knowledge, am a witness to 
a part, at least, of the truth of what that Indian told. 
And with all my heart do I add mine own entreaty to 
his simple pleadings for the salvation of the souls of 
his brethren; and also do I venture to entreat that 
among those who go to carry the Word of God to this 
hidden heathen host I may be one; so that I, though 
all unworthy of such honor, shall have a part in ren- 
dering to God so glorious a service. 

“The more urgently do I ask this favor because 
here, in this mission of Santa Marta, it is but too clear 
to me that I am laboring in a barren field. Some hun- 
dreds of the heathen I have indeed baptized; but 
among all these who have professed our Christian 
faith scarce a score show outward and visible signs of 
a true regeneration. Many, I am sadly sure, still prac- 
tise in secret their old idolatry—and find little more 
than mere amusement in the rites of our most holy 
Church. When they tire of this novelty, which, in 


MUNTEZUMA’S MESSENGER. 61 


the case of folk of such light natures no doubt will be 
in a little while, they will return openly to their idola- 
try; and it probably may happen that they then will 
sacrifice me to their heathen gods. That, in one way - 
or another, they do intend to kill me, and that soon, I 
feel quite sure. I am but twenty-three years old, Very 
Reverend Father; and that is an early time in life to 
end it. No doubt, also, in killing me they will use 
torture. And I long fervently to live, not only for 
the pleasure of it, but also that I may do good service 
to God, and to our Father Saint Francis, by saving 
many heathen souls. Therefore I beg that when the 
army marches to the reduction of this hidden city that 
I may be one of our brethren who will go with it, te 
hold by tender preaching of God’s goodness and mercy 
such heathen as may remain alive after our soldiers 
shall have conquered that city with the sword. 

“TI commend you, Very Reverend Father, to the care 
of Our Lord in all things, and pray that he may guard 
your most illustrious and very reverend person, and 
protect you in all matters of your temporal and spirit- 
ual estate. And I am the least worthy of your serv- 
ants, FRANCISCO DE Los ANGELES.” 


“Of a truth,” said Fray Antonio, as he ceased read- 
ing, “‘this brother of mine adhered closely to the truth 
when he subscribed himself the least worthy of the 
bishop’s servants. Were it not here in his own hand, 
I should refuse to believe that one of our Order at that 
time in New Spain had any thought of saving his own 
life when God’s work was to be done.” 


62 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


For myself, I must own that my heart was deeply 
touched by the very humanity of this poor Brother 
Francisco’s cry for help that came up out of the dead 
depths of the past; and that was the more keen and 
pitiful because the cruel death at the hands of the bar- 
barous Indians that he so dreaded assuredly had over- 
taken him. His could not have been a strong nature, 
and it was the weaker because of his youth; but, after 
all, it was the nature that God had given him, and 
there must have been a strain of strength in it, else he 
never would have braved the dangers which overcame 
him in the end. And he was “but twenty-three years 
old”! 

Yet when I sought to lead Fray Antonio’s mind ta 
such consideration of the matter he replied, sternly: 
“This weak brother failed in his duty. To him God 
gave an opportunity to die gloriously for the Faith; 
but, instead of accepting that noble reward joyfully, 
his strongest wish was that he might find a way by 
which he might escape alive. Had all professors of 
the Christian creed so conducted themselves, that creed 
long since would have perished from off the earth. 
Semen est sanguis Christianorum is well said of Ter- 
tullian the Carthaginian, and, later, of the blessed 
Saint Jerome.” 

As Fray Antonio thus spoke he so drew up his slight 
figure, and in his sweet voice was a ring of such com- 
manding sternness, that he was for the moment trans- 
formed. Here was a man wholly different from the 
gentle scholar whom I had already learned to love. In 
the glimpse that I thus had of his underiving char- 


MONTEZUMA’S MESSENGER. 63 


acter I saw vivified again the spirit of the early Chris- 
tian Church; and I understood, as I never had under- 
stood before, of what stuff they were made who heard 
pronounced upon them the sentence, “To the lions !” 
and joyfully accepted their cruel fate, defiant of what 
man might do to them because of the perfection of 
their faith in the merciful forgiveness and upholding 
steadfastness of their Christian God. 

But in a moment a look of sadness and regret came 
into Fray Antonio’s face, and he added, sorrowfully: 
“God forgive me for thus judging my brother, who 
long since was judged! Who can say that when the 
hour of trial came he did not meet his death as bravely 
as any martyr of them all? And who can say,” he 
went on, but speaking softly, as one communing with his 
own soul, “how I myself— But God gives strength.” 
And then he ceased to speak aloud, but his lips moved 
silently as though in prayer. As I close my eyes I see 
him again as clearly as I saw him then—standing be- 
side the old stone fountain, amid the flowers, in the 
gladness of the bright sunshine; in his eyes a strange, 
far-away look, as though the future for a moment had 
been opened to him; and on his strong, fine face a 
sternly resolute expression, which yet was softened by 
the traits which were so strong within him of holiness 
and gentleness and love. I cannot know what Fray 
Antonio prayed for, there in the old convent garden; 
but I can guess, and I am well persuaded that his 
prayer was heard. Truly, I think that it was some- 
thing more than chance that led us thus at first to 
talk, not of the wonder that was in Brother Fran- 


64 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE, 


cisco’s letter, but of Brother Francisco himself and of 
his end. 

And then the subject-matter in chief of the letter 
claimed our attention. In itself this was sufliciently 
marvellous; but what increased the marvel of it was 
the conviction, strong within us both, that if the hid- 
den city of Culhuacan ever had existed at all it existed 
still. Our belief was so entirely logical that, assuming 
the truth of the story told by the Indian captive, it 
admitted nowhere of a doubt. That the city had been 
hidden for a long period, through at least several hun- 
dreds of years, from the Aztecs themselves, and that 
no knowledge of it had been conveyed to them by 
wild Indians who had come by chance upon the valley 
wherein it was, was evidence enough of the security of 
its concealment. There was nothing surprising, conse- 
quently, in the fact that the Spaniards had not discov- 
ered it when they first overran Mexico, nor that it had 
remained unknown to the Mexicans of modern times. 
As is well known, there are to this day prodigious areas 
in Mexico which remain utterly unexplored. In the 
region west of Tampico; in the north-western States 
of Sinaloa, Durango, and Sonora; or in the far south- 
ern States of Oajaca and Chiapas, a valley as great as 
that in which the City of Mexico now stands might lie 
utterly hidden and unknown. And if, as the Indian’s 
narrative implied, this particular valley had been se- 
lected deliberately because it was so hidden and so in- 
accessible, and if the described precautions had been 
taken to isolate its inhabitants, it very well might have 
continued to be lost in its deep concealment through 


MONTEZUMA’S MESSENGER. 65 


an almost infinite range of years. That it never had 
been found since the Spaniards came into Mexico we 
were absolutely certain, for the outcry over so great a 
wonder would have echoed throughout the whole of 
the civilized world. Finally, in the name of the city, 
Culhuacan, we had a substantial fact which connected 
the extraordinary story that had come to us so strange- 
ly with matters within our own knowledge. For this 
name not only is given in the Aztec traditions as that 
of the sacred spot in which their god Huitzilopochtli 
spoke to them, but survives until this present day in 
the name of the village that lies at the foot of the sa- 
cred mountain, in the Valley of Mexico, called by the 
Aztecs the Hill of Huitzachtla, and by the Spaniards 
the Hill of the Star—on which, at the end of each 
cycle of fifty-two years, the sacred fire was renewed. 
Surely it was no accident that had caused the name 
Culhuacan to be given to this village on this sacred 
spot; rather must it have been so named by the elect 
few to whom the secret was known as a perpetual re- 
minder to them of the reserve of men and treasure 
upon which they could draw should danger threaten 
their country and their gods. 

“No doubt,” said Fray Antonio, “ what is here told 
of a secret record, known only to the priests, supplies 
one of the lapses in the pictured history of the Aztec 
migration; but as we know not which break in the his- 
tory is thus filled in, we have no clew whatever as to 
the whereabouts of this hidden place. Nor have we 
any clew as to the whereabouts of the mission of Santa 
Marta, whence we might go onward, guided by the 

5 


66 THE AZTEC TREASUBRE-HOUSE. 


carvings upon the rocks, until we found at last the 
place we sought. ‘he mission of Santa Marta, where 
my brother Francisco long ago ministered, might have 
been anywhere in all Mexico; and being so small a 
mission, and enduring for so short a period, it is not 
likely that any record of it anywhere has been pre- 
served. Had we but the map and the token of which 
my brother writes, our way would be clear; without 
these guides it well may be a toilsome way and long. 
Yet do I know,” Fray Antonio continued, earnestly, 
‘that I shall find this hidden city. In my soul is a 
strong and glad conviction that God has called me to 
the most glorious work of carrying to the heathen 
dwelling there the message of His saving love. He 
has worked one miracle already to call me to this 
duty; in His own good time and way I doubt not that 
He will work another miracle by which I may be set 
in the way of its accomplishment.” 

As Fray Antonio spoke of the map of the Aztec 
migration, a hope came into my heart that, as I con- 
sidered it, seemed surely to be a certainty. In the ex- 
citement of listening to this strange letter—concerning 
which not the least strange matter was, that between 
the writing and the reading of it had passed three bun- 
dred and fifty years—I had forgotten my own discov- 
eries, and that my purpose was to show him the pict- 
ured paper and the curious piece of gold. But as he 
spoke of the migration this matter was called to my 
mind suddenly; and then in an instant the conviction 
thrilled through me that the clew which would lead us 
to the hidden city was in my possession. 


THE ENGINEER AND THE LOST-FREIGHT MAN. 67 


“God already has worked that other miracle,” I 
cried, joyfully. ‘Here is the token, and here is the 
map that shows the way!” and, so speaking, I opened 
the snake-skin bag that I had taken from the breast of 
the dead Cacique and drew forth its precious contents, 

For myself, I needed no additional proof that here 
was all that was needful to guide us to the hidden city. 
Yet was I glad that in so grave a matter we should 
have added to absolute conviction the weight of abso- 
lute proof. And this we had most clearly; for Fray 
Antonio, cooler than I, compared the drawing in the 
letter with the engraving upon the piece of gold, and 
found the two to be essentially identical, save that the 
engraving lacked the sign of the arrow pointing the 
way. 

“And now,” I cried, enthusiastically, “for such dis- 
coveries in archeology as the world has never known!” 

“And now,” said Fray Antonio, speaking slowly and 
reverently, “for such glorious work in God’s service as 
has been granted but rarely to man to do!” 


Nas 
THE ENGINEER AND THE LOST-FREIGHT MAN. 


Tuat the weight of a strange destiny was pressing 
upon us, neither Fray Antonio nor I for a moment 
doubted. It was something more than chance, we be- 
lieved, that had brought us together, and that there- 
after, by such extraordinary means, had put into our 


68 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


hands, in places far asunder, yet at almost precisely 
the same moment, these two ancient papers ; either of 
which, alone, would have been meaningless; but the 
two of which, together, pointed clearly the way to a 
discovery so wonderful that the like of it was not to be 
found in all the history of the world. 

At the moment that I comprehended how great an 
adventure was before me, and what honorable fame I 
was like to get out of it, I determined that I would 
keep the whole matter secret from my fellow-arche- 
ologists until I could tell them, not what I intended 
doing, but what I actually had done—for I had no de- 
sire to divide with any one the honors that fairly would 
be mine when I published to the world the result of my 
investigation of this hidden community that had sur- 
vived, uncontaminated, from prehistoric times. Having 
this strong desire within me, it was with great pleas- 
ure that I acceded to Fray Antonio’s request that our 
project of discovery should not be published abroad. 
His motive for secrecy, as I presently perceived, was 
bred of the one single strain of human weakness that 
ever I found in him. Even as I was determined that 
no other archzologist should share with me the honor 
of discovering this primitive community, so was Fray 
Antonio determined that to him alone should belong 
the glory of carrying into that region of dense heathen 
darkness the radiant splendor of the Christian faith, 
Tf this were sin on his part, it certainly was a sin that 
he shared with many saints long since in Paradise. 
Even the blessed Saint Francis himself, when, at the 
Council of Mats, he portioned out among his followers 


THE ENGINEER AND THE LOST-FREIGHT MAN. 69 


the heathen world that they might preach everywhere 
Christianity, reserved for himself Syria and Egypt; in 
the hope that in one or the other of these countries he 
might crown his labors by suffering a glorious martyr- 
dom. And perhaps in this matter Fray Antonio was 
not unmindful of the example set him by the great 
founder of the Order to which he belonged. 

But while we were thus firmly decided to keep to 
ourselves the honors that so great an archeological 
discovery and so great a Christian conquest must bring 
to us severally, we perceived that it would not be 
the part of prudence to essay our adventure without 
any companions at all. Some portion of the country 
through which we were to pass we knew to be fre- 
quented by very dangerous tribes of Indians, against 
the assaults of which two lonely men—neither of whom 
had any knowledge whatever of the art of war—could 
make but a poor stand. And even should we escape 
the wild Indians, we knew that we might get into 
many evil straits in which our lives might be ended, 
yet through which a larger company might pass in 
safety. And for my own part, I must confess that I 
had a strong desire to have with me some of my own 
countrymen. For the gallantry of the Mexicans, which 
gallantry has been proved a thousand times, I have the 
highest respect; yet is it anatural feeling among Anglo- 
Saxons that when it comes to facing dangers in which 
death looms largely, and especially when it comes to a 
few men against a company of savages, and standing 
back to back and fighting to the very last, Anglo-Saxon 
hearts are found to be the stanchest, and Anglo-Saxon 


70 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


backs to be the stoutest which can be thus ranged 
together. But in our own case I did not at all see 
whence such an Anglo-Saxon contingent was to be ob- 
tained. 

We had been talking over this matter of a fighting 
force one afternoon in Fray Antonio’s sacristy—where 
our many colloquies were held, for we moved with a 
thoughtful deliberation in setting agoing our advent- 
ure—and we had come almost to the determination of 
organizing a little force of Otomi Indians, and calling 
upon two brave young gentlemen of Fray Antonio’s ac- 
quaintance to join us as lieutenants. Although I was 
willing to adopt this plan, since no other was open 
to us, I was far from fancying it; both for the reason 
which I have already named, and also for the reason— 
and this Fray Antonio admitted was not without foun- 
dation in probability —that our young allies would 
be more than likely, by their indiscreet disclosures, to 
make our purpose fully known. Therefore, it was in 
no very pleasant frame of mind, our conference being 
ended, that I returned to my hotel. 

As I entered the hotel court-yard I heard the sound 
of Pablo’s mouth-organ, and with this much laughter 
and some talk in English; and as I fairly caught sight 
of the merrymakers, I heard said, in most execrable 
Spanish, “ Here’s a medio for another tune, my boy; 
and if you’ll make the donkey dance again to it, I’ll 
give you a real.” 

That I might see what was going forward without 
interrupting it, I stepped behind one of the stone pil- 
lars that upheld the gallery; and for all that my mind 


THE ENGINEER AND THE LOST-FREIGHT MAN. 71 


was in no mood for laughter just then, I could not but 
fall to laughing at what I saw. 

Over on the far side of the court-yard, with Pablo 
and El Sabio, were two men whose type was so unmis- 
takable that I should have known them for Americans 
had I met them in the moon. One was a tall, wiry 
fellow, with a vast reach of arm, and a depth of chest 
and width of shoulders which showed what powerful 
engines those long arms of his were when he set them 
in motion. His face was nearly covered by a heavy 
black beard, and his projecting forehead and his reso- 
lute black eyes under it gave him a look of great ener- 
gy and force. The other was short and thick-set, with 
a big round head stockily upheld on a thick neck, and 
with a good-humored face, which, being clean-shaven, 
was chiefly notable for the breadth and the squareness 
of the jaws. He had merry blue eyes, and his crown 
—he was holding his battered Derby hat in his hand— 
was as bare as a billiard ball. Below timber-line, as he 
himself expressed it, he had a brush of close-cut sandy- 
red hair, I had encountered both of these men when 
I first came to Morelia, and during two or three weeks 
I had seen a good deal of them, for we had met daily 
at our meals; and the more that I had seen of them the 
better was I disposed to like them. The tall man was 
Rayburn, a civil engineer in charge of construction on 
the advanced line of the new railway; the other was 
Young, the lost-freight agent of the railroad company 
—whose duty, for which his keen quickness peculiarly 
well fitted him, was that of looking up freight which 
had gone astray in transit. Both of these men had 


vies THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


lived long in rough and dangerous regions, and both— 
as I then instinctively believed, and as I came later to 
know fully—were as true and as stanch and as brave 
as ever men could be. 

What they were laughing at, there in the court-yard, 
was an extraordinary performance in which the per- 
formers were Pablo and Hl Sabio. With a grin all 
over the parts of his face not engaged in the operation 
of his mouth-organ, Pablo was rendering on that instru- 
ment a highly Mexicanized version of one of the airs 
from Pinafore that he had just acquired from hearing 
Young whistle it. To this music, with a most pained 
yet determined expression, the Wise One was lifting 
his feet and swaying his body and nodding his head in 
a sort of accompaniment, his movements being directed 
by the waving of Pablo’s disengaged hand. The long 
ears of this unfortunate little donkey wagged in re- 
monstrance against the unreasonable motions demand- 
ed of his unlucky legs, and every now and then he 
would twitch viciously his fuzzy scrap of a tail; but 
his master was inexorable, and it was not until Pablo’s 
own desire to laugh became so strong that he no longer 
could play the mouth-organ that El Sabio was given 
rest. As he ended his dancing I must say that there 
was on Hl Sabio’s face as fine an expression of con- 
tempt as the face of a donkey ever wore. 

“ Hello, Professor !” Young called out, as he caught 
sight of me, “have you given up antiquities an’ gone 
into th’ circus business? ‘This outfit that you’ve got 
here will make your fortune when you get it back into 
th’ States. If you don’t want to run it yourself, Pll 


THE ENGINEER AND THE LOST-FREIGHT MAN. 73 


run it for you on th’ shares; an’ I guess Rayburn ll 
be glad t’ go along as clown. He’d make a good clown, 
Rayburn would. You see, we’re both of us out of 
work, an’ both lookin’ for a job.” 

‘¢ What do you mean by being out of work ?” I asked, 
when I had shaken hands with them. ‘“‘ What’s become 
of the railroad ?” 

“Qh, th’ railroad’s got into one of its periodical 
bust-ups,” Young answered. “A row among the bond- 
holders, an’ construction stopped, an’ working expenses 
reduced, an’ pretty much all hands bounced, from th’ 
president down. I guess Rayburn an’ I can stand th’ 
racket, though, if th’ company can. [ve been wantin’ 
t? get out of this d d Greaser country for a good 
while, an’ I guess now I’ve got my chance. I must 
say, though, I wish it had come a little less sudden, for 
I haven’t anything in particular in sight over in God’s 
country, an’ Rayburn hasn’t either. So if you want 
to start your circus we’re ready for you right away. 
Where did you get that boy-an’-donkey outfit from, 
anyway? ‘They’re just daisies, both of ’em an’ no 
mistake !” 

“I don’t know that you can count on me for a clown, 
Professor,” Rayburn said, “but I might go along as 
door-keeper, or something of that sort. But I don’t 
believe that Young and I will need to go into the cir- 
eus business. We are out of work, that’s a fact; but 
the company has done the square thing by us—paid us 
up in full to the end of next month and fitted us out 
with passes to St. Louis. We're all right. Young is 
heading straight for home, but I rather think that Pll 


74 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


take a turn around the country and see what the civil- 
ized parts of it look like. Ever since I came down 
here, nearly, ’ve been at work in the wilds. I want 
to see some of the old temples and things too. You 
can put me up to that, Professor. Where’s a good 
ruin to begin on ?” 

From the moment that I laid eyes on these two men, 
as I came into the court - yard, my mind was made 
up that I would do my best to induce them to join 
with Fray Antonio and me in our search for the hid- 
den city; and I had listened very gladly to what they 
told me, for it showed me that I should not have to 
ask them to abandon profitable work in order to join 
in our doubtful enterprise. So we talked lightly about 
the circus and other indifferent matters for a while; 
and then we had a lively supper together at La Sole- 
dad (which always seemed to me a very original name 
for a restaurant), and then I brought them to my room. 
to smoke their cigars. 

It was while they were in the comfortable frame of 
mind that is begotten of a good meal and subsequent 
good tobacco—over there in Morelia we smoked the 
Tepic cigars, which are excellent—that I opened to 
them the great project that I had in hand. I told them 
frankly the whole story: of my strange adventure in 
the Indian village, of the paper and the gold token 
which the Cacique unwittingly had given me, of the 
letter that Fray Antonio had found, and of how our 
joint discoveries set us clearly in the way of finding 
an Aztec community that certainly had existed un- 
changed, save for such changes as had been developed 


THE ENGINEER AND THE LOST-FREIGHT MAN. 75 


within itself, since a time long anterior to the Spanish 
conquest of Mexico. I dwelt with enthusiasm, and I 
think forcibly, upon the inestimable gain to the science 
of archeology that would result from the investiga- 
tions that we intended to make; and I touched also 
upon the scientific value that would attach to a care- 
ful and accurate description of the effect produced 
upon this primitive community by Fray Antonio’s 
preaching ; for this would be, as I pointed out, the 
first occasion in the history of the world when a rec- 
ord would be made, from the stand-point of the un- 
prejudiced ethnologist, of the reception accorded by a 
heathen people to the doctrine of Christianity. Ina 
word, I presented the case most glowingly—so glow- 
ingly, in fact, that my own heart was quite fired by 
it—and ended by urging them earnestly to join us in 
a work that promised so greatly to increase the sum of 
human knowledge touching the most interesting sub- 
jects that can be presented to the consideration of the 
human mind. And I am pained to state that I dis- 
covered, when I finished my appeal, that Young was 
sound asleep ! 

Rayburn did not go to sleep, and he did take a cer- 
tain amount of interest in what I said, but I was dis- 
couraged by his very obvious failure to respond to my 
enthusiasm. 

“You see, Professor,” he said, “the fact of the mat- 
ter is that I can’t spare the time. I might take a month 
or two, but you seem to think that a year is the least 
time in which any substantial results can be accom- 
plished. I can’t give a year, or anything like a year, 


76 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


to what, so far as I am concerned, will be sheer idle- 
ness. I’ve got a mother and sister at home on Cape 
Cod who depend on me for a living, and I must get to 
work again. You see, there is glory enough in all this, 
and glory that I should like to have a share in; but 
glory is a luxury that I can’t afford. Dve got to go to 
work at something that has money in it.” 

The sound of Rayburn’s voice had the effect om 
Young of waking him up. He listened, in a sleepily 
approving way, to Rayburn’s practical comment, and 
then, giving a prodigious yawn, added, on his own ac- 
count: ‘Yes, that’s about the size of it. We’re neither 
of us here for our health, Professor ; what we’re after 
is spot cash. If there was any money in your scheme 
I'd take a hand in it quick enough; but as there isn’t— 
Well, not this evening, Professor; some other evening.” 

‘“‘No money in it!” I answered. ‘“ Why, haven’t I 
told you that there is stored in this hidden city the 
greatest treasure that ever was brought into one place 
since the world began ?” 

“No, Pil be d d if you have!” Young replied, 
with great energy and promptness. “‘ Not a word, un- 
less it was while I was asleep. What's he said about 
a treasure, Rayburn? I’m awake now, an’ [ll keep 
awake if there’s anything like that to be talked about.” 

“You certainly haven’t said anything about a treas- 
ure so far, Professor,” Rayburn said. ‘Td like to 
hear about it myself. If there is a treasure-hunting 
expedition mixed up with this scientific expedition of 
yours, that puts a new face on the whole matter. I 
ean’t afford the luxury of scientific investigation pure 


199 


THE ENGINEER AND THE LOST-FREIGHT MAN. 77 


and simple, but if there is money in it too, that is 
quite another thing. So tell us about your prospect, 
Professor, and if the surface indications are good you 
ean count on me to go in.” 

I confess that I was a trifle disappointed upon find- 
ing how eagerly these young men sought information 
in regard to a matter that I considered so unimportant 
that I had forgotten even to mention it. But I reflect- 
ed that, after all, the motive by which they were in- 
duced to join in our adventure was immaterial, while 
our need for the strength that their joining fn it would 
give us was so pressing that upon gaining them for 
allies very likely depended our eventual success. Be- 
ing moved by which considerations, 1 dilated upon the 
magnitude of the hidden treasure with such vehemence 
that presently their eyes were flashing, and the blood 
had so mounted into their brains that their very fore- 
heads were ruddy and their breath came short. And I 
must confess that my own pulses beat quicker and 
harder as I talked on. Of this treasure I had not be- 
fore thought at all, being so thoroughly taken up with 
the scientific side of the discovery that I hoped to ac- 
complish; but now I was moved profoundly by thoughts 
of what I could do for the advancement of science had 
I practically limitless wealth at my command. And 
especially was I thrilled by the thought of the mag- 
nificent form in which my own magnificent discover- 
ies could be given to the world. Compared with my 
Pre-Columbian Conditions on the Continent of North 
America, Lord Kingsborough’s great work, both m 
form and in substance, would sink into hopeless insig- 


78 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


nificance. And in all that I said of the vastness of the 
hidden treasure I felt certain that I was keeping well 
within the bounds of truth, for I had the positive as- 
surance that in the Aztec treasure-house in that hid- 
den valley the ransom of a nation was stored. 

“Will you go with us?” I asked, when I had brought 
my glowing description to an end. 

“Well, I should smile, Professor,” was Young’s char- 
acteristic answer. 

‘You can count me in now, and no mistake !” said 
Rayburn, and added, “By Jove, Palgrave, I mean to 
take a part of my share and buy the whole of Cape 
Cod !” 

And so the make-up of our party was decided upon. 
Fray Antonio joined it for the love of God; I joined it 
for the love of science; and Young and Rayburn joined 
it for the love of gold. In regard to the boy Pablo, he 
could not strictly be said to have joined it at a He 
simply went along. 


VI. 
THE KING’S SYMBOL. 


Fray ANnTonIo was well pleased when I told him of 
the stout contingent that I had secured; and when he 
had seen Rayburn and Young, and had talked with 
them—though his talk with Young did not amount to 
much, for Young’s Spanish was abominable—he was as 
thoroughly satisfied as I was that for our purposes we 
could not possibly have found two better men. 


THE KING’S SYMBOL. 79 


In the course of this conference we made short work 
of our preparations for departure. Rayburn’s experi- 
ence in fitting out engineering parties had given him 
precisely the knowledge required for putting our own 
little party promptly and effectively in the field; and 
in this matter, and in all practical matters connected 
with the expedition, he took the lead. He and Young 
already possessed the regulation frontier outfit of arms 
—a Winchester rifle and a big revolver—which they 
increased by another big revolver apiece; and I armed 
myself similarly with a pair of revolvers and a Win- 
chester: concerning the use that 1 should make of 
which, in case need for using them arose, I had very 
grave doubts indeed. Fray Antonio declined to carry 
any arms at all; and after he had accidentally dis- 
charged one of my pistols, which he had picked up to 
examine, so that the ball went singing by my ear and 
actually cut through the brim of Young’s hat, there 
was a general disposition to admit that the less this 
godly man had to do with carnal weapons the safer 
would it be for all the rest of us. Young’s hat was a 
battered Derby, and about as unsuitable a hat for wear 
in Mexico as possibly could be found ; but for some 
unknown reason he was very much attached to that 
hat, and he was so wroth over having a hole shot 
through it in that unprovoked sort of way that he 
manifested a decided coolness towards Fray Antonio 
for several days. 

In the matter of armament, the happiest member of 
our party was Pablo. He was a handy boy, and when 
he had demonstrated his ability to manage a revolver 


80 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


by doing some very creditable shooting with mine (at 
a mark that I had stuck up in the corral, in order that 
I might gain ease in the use of this unknown weapon), 
I delighted him inexpressibly by buying him a pistol 
for his very own. I think that Pablo, upon becoming 
the possessor of that revolver, at once grew two inches 
taller. The way that he strutted as he wore it, and his 
eager thrusting forward of his left hip, so that this 
gallant piece of warlike furniture might be the most 
conspicuous part of him, were a joy to witness, For 
a time his mouth-organ was entirely neglected; and 
coming quietly into the corral one day, I found him 
engaged in exhibiting the revolver to El Sabio; who 
regarded it with a slightly bored expression that I do 
not think Pablo took in good part. 

Rayburn decided that our expedition could be made 
more effectively with a small force than with a large 
one. He argued that unless we took into the Indian 
country a really powerful body of men, we would be 
safer with a very few: for a few of us would feel 
keenly the necessity of keeping constantly on guard ; 
could be more easily managed and held together in 
running away; and in case a fight was forced upon us 
we would fight more steadily because each of us would 
know surely that he could rely upon the support of all 
the rest. Which reasoning we perceived to be so sound 
that we promptly accepted it. 

Rayburn added to our company, therefore, only three 
men: two Otomi Indians of whom Fray Antonio gave 
a good account, and Dennis Kearney, who had served 
as axeman on the recently disbanded engineering corps. 


THE KINGS SYMBOL. 81 


He was a merry soul, this Dennis, with a stock of Irish 
melodies in his head that would have made the fortune 
of an old-time minstrel. He and Pablo took to each 
other at once—though, since neither of them spoke a 
word of the other’s language, music was their only 
channel of communication—and Pablo presently pre- 
sented us with a rendering on his mouth-organ, from a 
strictly Mexican stand- point, of “Rory O’More” that 
quite took our breaths away. While Pablo played, 
Dennis would stand by with his head cocked on one 
side, and with an air of attention as closely critical as 
that which El Sabio himself exhibited ; and when Pab- 
lo went wrong, as he invariably did in his attempted 
bravura passages, Dennis would stop him with a wave 
of his hand, and an “ Aisy now, me darlint! That’s 
good enough Mexican, but it ain’t good Irish at all, 
at all,” and then would show him what good Irish was 
by singing “‘ Rory O’More” in a fashion which made 
the old stone arches ring with a volume of music that 
could have given odds to an entire brass band. Poor 
Dennis! Only the other day I heard an organ-grinder 
grinding forth “ Rory O’More,” and the memory of the 
last time I heard Dennis sing that song, and of what 
heroic stuff that merry- hearted rough fellow then 
showed himself to be made, came suddenly over me, 
and there was a choking in my throat, and my eyes 
were full of tears. 

Well, it was a good thing—or a bad thing, as you 
please to put it—that we could not see far into the 
future that morning when we packed our mules in the 
corral of the hotel, and set out upon the march that 

6 ‘ 


82 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


was to lead us through such perilous passages before 
we reached its end. 

That I might fill to the brim the cup of Pablo’s hap- 
piness—for my conscience pricked me a little that I 
suffered him to go with us—I had bought him the rain- 
coat of palm leaves for which his heart so long had 
pined. What with this and his revolver, and the de- 
light of going upon a journey (for he had very fully 
developed that love of travel which is so strong in his 
race), his wits seemed to be completely addled with joy. 
He insisted upon putting on his absurd rain-coat at 
once; and he did so many foolish things that even El 
Sabio looked at him reproachfully—this was when he 
tried to place on that small donkey’s back some of the 
heavy pack-stuff destined for the back of one of the 
big mules—and we got along much better with his 
room, as he presently enabled us to do, than we did 
with his company. When the time for starting came, 
we had quite a hunt for him; and we might not have 
found him at all had we not been guided by the sound 
of music to the sequestered spot to which he had re- 
tired in order to give vent to his pent-up feelings by 
playing on his mouth-organ “ Pop goes the weasel ”— 
an air that Young had been whistling that morning 
and that had mightily taken Pablo’s fancy. 

We made rather an imposing cavalcade as we filed 
forth from the great gate of the hotel, and took our 
way along the Calle Nacional, the principal street of 
the city, towards the Garita del Poniente. Fray An- 
tonio and I rode first; then came Rayburn and Young, 
followed by Dennis Kearney; then the two pack-mules, 


THE KING’S SYMBOL. 83 


beside which walked the two Otomi Indians; and 
closing the procession came Pablo, wearing his rain- 
coat, with his revolver strapped outside of it, and rid- 
ing El Sabio with a dignity that would have done hon- 
or to the Viceroy himself. Pablo certainly was in the 
nature of an anti-climax; but I would not have told him 
so for the world. Fray Antonio wore the habit of his 
Order, this privilege having been specially granted to 
him by the Governor of the State as a safeguard for all 
his expeditions among the Indians. It was understood, 
indeed, that he now was going forth on one of his mis- 
sionary visits among the mountain tribes, and simply 
rode with us, so far as our ways should lie together, 
for greater security. I had announced that I was go- 
ing among the Indians again in order to increase my 
knowledge of their manners and customs; and Ray- 
burn—to whom the rest of the party was supposed to 
belong—had stated that he was taking the field in or- 
der to make a new reconnoissance along the line of the 
projected railway. It was in order to maintain these 
several fictions that we went out by the western gate, 
and that we continued for two days our march west- 
ward before turning to our true course. 

Of our progress during the ensuing fortnight it is 
not necessary that I should speak, for beyond the ordi- 
nary incidents of travel no adventures befell us. Dur- 
ing this period we went forward steadily and rapidly; 
and at the end of it we had covered more than three 
hundred miles, and had come close to where—suppos- 
ing our rendering of the Aztec map to be correct, and 
that we had rightly collated it with the dead monk’s 


84 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE., 


letter—the mission of Santa Marta had stood three cen. 
turies and a half before. There was no possibility thar 
any trace of this mission would be found; but every 
rock that we came to was most eagerly scrutinized, for 
en any one of them might we find the King’s symbol 
engraved. 

For two or three days we had been travelling 
through a region very wild and desolate. Far away 
along the western horizon rose a range of mountains 
whose bare peaks cut a jagged line along the sky. 
The country between us and these far-away mount- 
ains was made up of many parallel ranges of rocky 
hills; which ranges were separated by broad, shallow 
valleys, where cactus and sage-brush covered the dry 
ground thickly; and the only trees that broke this 
dreary monotony were pita-palms, the most dismal 
thing in all created nature to which the name of a 
tree ever has been given by man. There was no 
trail, and travelling through this tangle of briers was 
very difficult. All of Rayburn’s skill, which long 
practice had developed to a high degree, was required 
to enable us to pick a way through so thorny a wil- 
derness. At times the Indians with their machetes, 
and Dennis with his axe, had to cut a path for us; 
and despite all our care, our own hands were cut and 
torn, and the legs of our poor beasts were red with 
blood. 

The deadly dryness of this arid waste added to our 
discomfort. A strong dry wind blew steadily from 
the north, building up out of the fine dust which was 
over all the surface of the baked ground little whirl- 


THE KING'S SYMBOL. 85 


winds—remolinos, as the Mexicans call them—which 
went dancing down the valleys as though they were 
ghostly things; and occasionally, when one of these 
struck us, we were covered with a prickly dust that 
fairly burned our skins. What water we got was to 
be had only by digging in the arroyos which traversed 
the centre of each valley longitudinally; and although 
this water always was muddy, and had a strongly al- 
kaline taste, it is the only thing that I remember with 
pleasure in all that weary land. Of animal life there 
was nothing to be seen, save a-plenty of rattlesnakes ; 
and a few great buzzards which wheeled above us 
from time to time as though with the intention of 
keeping track of us until we should fall down and die 
of thirst and weariness, and they should be able to 
feast upon us at their ease. 

At the end of the third day of this dreary travel- 
ling we had come close to the great western range of 
mountains, and our camp that night was made in the 
mouth of a little valley that opened from among the 
foot-hills. The night before we had made a dry 
camp, and for the whole of the twenty-four hours we 
had had but a pint of water apiece. Pablo, I am sure, 
had given half of his own scant allowance to El Sabio. 
The other animals—it was all that we could do for 
them—had only their dusty mouths and nostrils wiped 
dut with a wet sponge. They were pitiable objects, 
with their bleeding legs, their haggard eyes, their out- 
hanging tongues, and their quivering flanks. As Fray 
Antonio unsaddled his horse I saw that there were 
tears in his eyes; but the rest of us, I fear, were too 


86 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


thoughtful of our own misery to feel much sorrow for 
the misery of our beasts. 

I suppose that a man must suffer the lack of it, as 
we then did, in order to know how precious a thing 
water is. And to give some notion of its preciousness 
to those who not only are free at any time to drink 
their fill of it, but even can fill bath-tubs with it, and 
feel the joy of it on their bare bodies whenever they 
are so minded, I will say that when a little digging 
gave us that night as much water as we wanted, our 
joy was far greater than it would have been had we 
there found the hidden city of which we were in search. 

Our well was sunk in the broad sandy bottom of the 
arroyo, in the midst of a narrow and delectably grassy 
valley between two foot-hills. And the abundance and 
the sweetness of the water, as well as the presence of 
grass, showed us that but a little way up this valley 
there must be an open stream. We drank, and our 
beasts drank, until all of our skins were nigh to burst- 
ing; and the abundance of water was so great that we 
even could wash the dust at last from our parched 
faces and necks and arms; and much like raw beef our 
skins looked when our washing was ended, and the 
stinging of them was as though we had been whipped 
with nettles. It was our intention now to leave the 
plains and to march along the edge of the foot-hills 
parallel with the main range, otherwise we should not 
have ventured thus to wash ourselves. In a region 
where alkali dust is in the air, washing is to be shunned; 
for each time that the skin is cleaned the new deposit 
of dust takes a deeper biting hold. 


THE KING'S SYMBOL. 87 


It was rather that we might escape the misery of 
further travel on the arid plains than because we had 
any strong hopes of thus finding the way of which we 
were in search that we had decided to change our line 
of march. Young had begun openly to express his 
contempt for the Aztec map, and in the hearts of all 
of us had sprung up some doubts as to its trustworthi- 
ness as a guide. After all, it was not in the least a 
map in the true meaning of the word; and that it 
should show us rightly our way depended not only 
vpon our having interpreted correctly its curious sym- 
bolism, but also upon the correctness of the interpre- 
tation that Mexican archeologists had given to the 
map of the first Aztec migration—of which map, as 
we believed, our map was a reserved and secret part. 
If either interpretation were wrong, then we might be 
hundreds of miles distant from the region in which the 
way marked by gravings of the King’s symbol should 
be sought. 

Four or five hours of daylight still remained to us 
after we had dug our well, and with the delicious wa- 
ter flowing into it had satisfied our thirst; but we had 
no intention of going farther that day. We had no 
need to hobble the animals, for they could be trusted 
to stay near the water-hole while they feasted on the 
grass, and we needed food and rest quite as much as 
they did. Young and Dennis together got us up a 
famous meal, and when it was ended we lighted our 
pipes and held a sort of council of war. That we 
might talk the more freely, in both English and Span- 
ish, we drew away a little from where the two Otomi 


88 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


Indians and Pablo were stretched out upon the grass 
together; and we bade Dennis take a look around the 
shoulder of the first hill, so that we might know some- 
thing of what our way would be like when we start- 
ed in the morning; for we were not as yet ready that 
the minor members of the expedition should know the 
purpose that we had in mind. We had decided that 
when, by the finding of the course indicated by the 
gravings of the King’s symbol, our quest fairly had 
a beginning, being no longer a matter of mere hope 
and conjecture, we then would give Dennis and Pablo 
and the two Indians some notion of what we intend- 
ed doing; with the option of deciding for themselves 
whether or not they would have a part in it. And 
the thought never once occurred to our minds that 
circumstances might arise of such a nature that nei- 
ther they nor we would have any choice in the matter 
at all. 3 

As we consulted together we had spread out before 
us a map of Mexico, and with this the map that the 
Cacique had given me, and a copy of the map showing 
the great Aztec march. Yet the more that we coun- 
cilled the less could we come to any reasonable conclu- 
sion as to what was best for us to do. As nearly as 
we could tell from the strange guides that we needs 
must be led by, we had beaten thoroughly the region 
where once the mission of Santa Marta was; and not a 
trace of the gravings on the rocks had we found. To 
go over this region again, searching still more minute- 
ly, was too great an undertaking even to be thought 
of; and yet the only alternative to this painful course 


THE KING’S SYMBOL. 89 


seemed to be that we should abandon our search alto- 
gether ; in short, we were completely at sea. 

“What J think,” said Young, “is that that old dead 
monk, an’ that old dead Cacique, have set up a job on 
us. They’re both of ’em lyin’ like fiddlers; that’s 
what’s th’ matter with them. There ain’t any hidden 
city, or hidden treasure, or hidden d n anything; 
it’s all a fraud from beginnin’ t? end. I vote t’ pull 
up stakes an’ go home.” 

A cool refreshing wind was beginning to sweep 
down to us from the mountains; but it was blowing 
only in puffs as yet, for the night would not be upoa 
us for several hours. Borne faintly and fitfully upon 
this uncertain wind came to us the strains of “ Rory 
O’More”; with which melody, as we inferred, Dennis 
was beguiling his solitude while he explored the route 
that we were to take the next day. Pablo, sitting 
comfortably on the grass, his back propped against 
the back of El Sabio, also caught the sound; and 
straightway began to play an accompaniment on his 
mouth-organ to Dennis’s distant singing. The strains 
gradually grew louder, showing that Dennis was re- 
turning; but when they stopped suddenly we thought 
that he had only tired of the sound of his own voice, or, 
perhaps, did not think anything about the matter at all. 

But when a sound of hurried, irregular steps came 
down the wind to us, we all were on our feet in a Mox 
ment and had our arms ready, for it was evident that 
Dennis was running from something; and the danger 
was likely to be a serious one, for running was not at 
all in Dennis’s line. We wondered why he did not 


90 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


call out; but the explanation of his silence was plain 
enough, ten seconds later, as he came around the shoul- 
der of the hill, staggered in among us, and fell on the 
grass at our feet—with the blood streaming from his 
mouth and nostrils, and with an arrow clear through 
his breast. 

“‘Tndians !” he gasped, with an effort that brought 
a torrent of blood spurting from his mouth; and he 
added, faintly, ‘‘ But Pve bate ’em, th’ divvils, in their 
hopes of a soorprise !” 

These triumphant words were the last that Dennis 
Kearney uttered on earth. As he spoke, a fresh out- 
burst of blood came from his nostrils and mouth, a 
quiver went over him—and then he was dead. I 
do not believe that many men would have done what 
Dennis did: run a good quarter of a mile with an 
arrow through his lungs, and then die exulting be- 
cause he had succeeded in warning the camp. 

Rayburn had the situation instantly in hand. “ Get 
the packs and saddles on quick!” he cried. ‘The 
Indians ’1l come around that hill and try to scoop us 
here in the open. They won’t close in; they’ll keep 
off, and just lie around for a week till we’re played out, 
and then they’ll step in and finish us; they’ll do that, 
likely enough, anyway. But our one chance is to get 
to a place up the valley here, where they can tackle us 
only from in front. There’s water up there, so we'll 
be all right, and we may be able to shoot enough of 
them to make the rest give it up, or they’ll close in, 
and we’ll have the comfort of getting the whole thing 
ended without any useless fooling over it.” 


THE KING’S SYMBOL. 91 


All the while that he spoke he was working away, 
and so were we all, at saddling and packing; and, 
luckily, the animals, although the water and the food 
and the rest had put new strength into them, still were 
too tired to give us the trouble that animals give at 
such times when they are fresh. In a surprisingly 
short time we were ready to start; and yet not a sign 
had we had, save the warning that Dennis had brought 
us, that there was an Indian within a hundred miles 
of us. Indeed, but for his dead body on the ground 
beside our camp-fire, we might have imagined that our 
scare was only a bad dream. That it was a very bad 
reality was shown just as the last pack went on, when 
one of our Otomi Indians gave a howl as an arrow 
went through his leg, and I felt a sharp little nip on 
my forehead where an arrow just grazed it, and there 
was that queer, faint whirring sound in the air that 
ouly a flight of a good many arrows together will 
produce. 

Rayburn took the body of poor Dennis before him 
on his own horse; he’d be d dif the Indians should 
get Dennis yet, he said; and away we went up the 
sandy bed of the arroyo, driving the mules before us, 
and the Otomi Indians pelting along on a dead-run. 
The Indian who had been hit coolly broke the ar- 
row off short, and then pulled it out through the 
wound. 

Suddenly we saw Young, who was riding a little 
ahead of the rest of us, half pull up his horse and 
look earnestly at a great shoulder of rock that jutted 
out from the mountain-side. “There’s your King’s 


92 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


symbol, and be d d to it!” he shouted; and added, 
“ What’s the good of a King’s symbol when we're all 
goin’ to lose our hair ?” 

He was under full headway again in a moment. As 
we shot past the rock we all turned to look; and there, 
sure enough, was the long-sought-for sign. 


VIL. 


THE FIGHT IN THE CANON. 


As we fled along the valley, and in a few moments 
heard the sound of the Indians pursuing us, my mind 
was chiefly occupied with considerations of the quali- 
ty which we denominate fear. I perceived that this 
purely occasional passion had a very direct bearing 
upon my own especial science of archeology. I re- 
flected that had I been engaged in building a city at - 
the moment when that irritating flight of arrows fell 
among us—the sting of one of which I still felt smart- 
ing upon my forehead—I should assuredly have ceased 
at once the building of that city, and should have 
moved rapidly away. And thus an excellently well- 
built city, that would have delighted archzologists of 
the future, would have been lost to the world. Put- 
ting the matter yet more closely: here I had just 
found the sign for which I and my companions had 
been toilsomely searching for a considerable time; the 
sign which unquestionably would lead us to the most 
interesting archzological discovery that ever had been 


THE FIGHT IN THE CANON. 93 


made. And yet, instead of stopping to study this 
sign earnestly, that I might understand all the mean- 
ing of it, I was hastening away from it with all possi- 
ble speed; and for no better reason than that certain 
barbarians, whose knowledge of archeology was not 
even rudimentary, were pursuing me that they might 
take my life—an imperfectly expressed concept, by- 
the-way; for life can be taken only in the limited sense 
of depriving another of it; it cannot be taken in the 
full sense of deprivation and acquisition combined. 
These several reflections so stirred my bile against the 
Indians in pursuit of us that I began to have a curi- 
ously blood-thirsty longing for our actual battling 
with them to begin; for I was possessed by a most 
unscientific desire to balance our account by killing 
several of them. And I confess that this desire was 
increased as I looked at the dead body of poor Dennis, 
lying limply across the fore-shoulders of Rayburn’s 
horse. 

It was with real satisfaction, therefore, that I obeyed 
Rayburn’s order to halt, that we might make ready for 
the fight to begin. The valley up which we had been 
riding had narrowed by this time into a strait way 
shut in between high and nearly perpendicular walls; 
and the place that Rayburn had chosen for us to make 
our stand in was the mouth of a cafion setting off from 
the valley nearly at right angles. The walls of this 
cafion came almost together above, far overhanging 
their bases, so that assault from overhead was impossi- 
ble;,some fragments of fallen rock made a natural 
breastwork for us to fight behind; and a little stream 


94 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


of pure, sweet water flowed at our feet. Had this 
place been made for us expressly it could not better 
have suited our purposes; and finding it so opportunely 
put fresh heart into us. There was not, of course, a 
shadow of resemblance between the two, but, some- 
how, I fancied that the place where we stood resem- 
bled my old class-room at Ann Arbor; and I actually 
found myself repeating the opening sentence of the 
address that I delivered when I was formally inducted 
into the Chair of Topical Linguistics. I mention this 
fact not because it is of the slightest importance in 
this present narrative, but because I think that it well 
illustrates the tendency towards illogical association 
that is so curious a characteristic of the human mind. 

I was not able to observe this phenomenon attentive- 
ly, for Rayburn hustled us all about so sharply that I 
had no available time just then for abstract thought. 
The mules and the horses and El Sabio were driven 
into the cafion, and we were ranged behind the frag- 
ments of rock almost ina moment. Each man had his 
Winchester and revolvers in readiness, and a couple 
of cases of cartridges had been broken out from the 
packs and put where we all had easy access to them. 
While this work was going forward we could hear the 
Indians coming hotly up the valley, and we were bare- 
ly ready for them when the foremost of their party 
came in sight. 

“Wait a little,” said Rayburn, quietly. ‘‘ They 
don’t know which turn we’ve taken, and they’ll proba- 
bly get into a bunch to do some talking, and then 
we can whack away right into the flock.” 


THE FIGHT IN THE CANON. 95 


While we were thus making ready I could see tnat 
Fray Antonio was in great distress of mind. He was 
a very brave man, and I know that his strong desire 
was to fight with the rest of us. And yet, just as the 
Indians showed themselves, he deliberately turned his 
back upon them and walked away into the cafion’s 
depths. His very lips were white, and there were 
beads of sweat upon his brow, and I saw that his fin- 
gers twitched convulsively. JI know what he wanted 
to do, and I saw what he did. If ever a man showed 
the high bravery of moral courage, Fray Antonio 
showed it then. Even Young, in whom I did not look 
for appreciation of bravery of that sort, said after- 
wards that it was the pluckiest thing he ever saw. 

As Rayburn had expected, the Indians halted—but 
keeping more under cover than he had counted upon— 
and held some sort of a council. But it did not seem, 
from what we could see of their gestures, to relate to 
the way that we might have taken so much as to the 
cafion in which we actually were concealed, They 
pointed towards the mouth of the cafion repeatedly, 
and it struck me that in their motions there was a cu- 
rious indication of dread or awe. One old man was 
especially vehement in gestures of this unaccountable 
nature; and when at last the younger men in the coun- 
cil seemed to revolt against his orders, this man, and 
all the older men with him, retired down the valley 
whence they had come. 

The young men, left to themselves, hesitated for a 
moment, and then with a cry—as though for their own 
encouragement—came charging towards us in a body. 


96 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


As we got a full view of them we perceived with much 
satisfaction that their only arms were bows and arrows 
and long spears, and that there were not more than 
twenty men in the lot. And then Rayburn gave the 
order to fire. I confess that my hand so trembled as I 
pulled the trigger of my rifle that I was not at all sur- 
prised to find that the man whom I had fired at—a 
very tall, powerful young fellow, who seemed to be in 
command—was not hit; but a man just behind him 
dropped, and I had a queer feeling in my throat, and — 
certain odd sensations in my stomach, as I realized that 
I had shot him. Indeed, I was so engrossed with med- 
itations upon the curious ease with which a man’s life 
is let out of him, that I quite forgot for some sec- 
onds to continue firing. The others, luckily, conduct- 
ed themselves in a more practical manner; and the 
little whirlwind of balls which sped from the Win- 
chesters made it wonderful, not that so many of the 
Indians fell dead or wounded, as that any of them re- 
mained alive and unhurt. But eight of them did sur- 
vive their charge in the face of the storm of bullets 
that we pelted at them; and these—headed by the tall 
fellow, who seemed bullet-proof—came rushing at us 
over our breastwork of rocks, shouting and flourishing 
their long spears. 

I cannot say very accurately what happened during 
the next five minutes or so, for one of the Indians 
came directly at me, and before I could at all stop him 
—for I found that shooting at him with my revolver 
did him no harm at all; and this struck me as odd, 
for I had repeatedly hit the mark while practising in 


THE FIGHT IN THE CANON. 97 


the corral—he had prodded his spear through the 
fleshy part of my left arm. It hurt severely. He had 
aimed his thrust, doubtless, at my heart, and he cer- 
tainly would have penetrated that vital organ had 1 
not at that moment slipped, and so disarranged his 
aim. He pulled the spear out of my arm, which ac- 
tion also gave me great pain, and his manner indicated 
that he was about to thrust it into some other part of 
me ; which he surely could have done, for I was whol- 
ly at a loss as to what measures should be taken to 
assure my own safety. Indeed, I was very well con- 
vinced that my life was as good as ended, and a cu- 
rious flash of thought went through me that I cannot 
coherently remember, but that was in the nature of a 
query as to whether or not in a future state the many 
scientific truths which as yet are but imperfectly un- 
derstood will be wholly revealed to us. 

However, the opportunity that I confidently expect- 
ed would be given to me in a moment te obtain an an- 
swer to this interesting question did not then occur. 
Just as the Indian was lunging at me—I can see his 
ugly face now, as I close my eyes and let my thoughts 
turn backward to that critical moment—there was a 
flash of some bright object before me, and then the 
Indian’s entire head seemed to shut up suddenly, some- 
thing like an opera-glass, and he went down to the 
ground like a stone. As I turned, I saw that my de- 
liverance had come from Pablo, and even in that very 
exciting moment I observed with astonishment that 
the weapon with which he had slain the Indian was a 
great jagged sword—if the maccuahuitl can be called 


98 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


a sword—such as the Aztecs used in ancient times. 
I could not then conveniently stop to question him 
whence he had obtained that very interesting weapon, 
for there was another Indian already close upon me; 
and I am pleased to say—for I do not wish the belief 
to go abroad that scientific men are worse than useless 
in practical emergencies—that, without assistance from 
Pablo or from anybody else, | managed to pick up my 
rifle, and with the heavy iron barrel of that weapon, 
used clubwise, I mashed the head of that Indian into 
a perfect pulp. I know positively that I mashed it 
into a pulp, for I tried afterwards to measure it, and 
found that for craniological purposes it was utterly 
valueless. 

Even had I required Pablo’s aid in this encounter 
he could not possibly have given it to me, for he was 
himself just then very hotly engaged. Indeed, but for 
assistance that came to him from an unexpected quar- 
ter his life assuredly would have been lost. He was in 
the act of hauling back to strike at the fellow facing 
him, and he did not at all know that he was in immi- 
nent danger of a thrust in the back from a wounded 
wretch who, having struggled upon his knees, was 
using what little life was left in him to deliver yet 
another blow. Just at this critical instant it was that 
Fray Antonio dashed into the thick of the fighting, 
and covered Pablo’s body with his own agaimst this 
assault in the rear; so that, as the Indian struck, the 
knife only cut through the monk’s habit and slightly 
scratched his arm, instead of making a hole between 
Pablo’s shoulder-blades that would have let the life 


THE FIGHT IN THE CANON. 99 


out of him. Young, who was close beside Pablo, saw 
what was going on, and checked it before further harm 
was done by turning quickly and shooting off the top 
of the wounded Indian’s head; and then Fray Antonio 
retired out of the fighting in which, without himself 
striking a blow, he had taken so gallant a part. 

So far as I was concerned, the fight was at an end 
when I had so cleverly mashed the head of my second 
assailant. No more Indians came at me, and as I looked 
around I perceived that this was for the excellent rea- 
son that there were no more to come. ‘Two were just 
advancing on Young; who had them covered with his 
revolver, and dropped them, one after the other, in less 
time than is required to tell about it. The only other 
survivor among the enemy—at least the only one able 
to keep his feet—was the tall young chief, and he and 
Rayburn were just finishing the last round of what 
probably was as fine a fight as ever was fought. They 
were well matched in size and in weight; and if the 
Indian was any stronger than Rayburn, I can only say 
that he must have been a most wonderfully strong 
man. They were fighting on even terms; for the Ind- 
ian was armed only with a short club, that he held in 
his left hand—and this left-handed method made him 
all the more awkward to deal with—while Rayburn, 
having emptied his revolver, was using as a club its 
heavy barrel. 

As I caught sight of them, the Indian was in the 
act of springing forward and delivering a tremendous 
blow; but Rayburn most skilfully parried this blow by 
throwing out his rifle, still retained in his left hand, in 


100 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


such a manner and with such force that the Indian’s 
arm—at the same time striking and being struck with 
the iron barrel—was broken just above the wrist. He 
gave a yell of pain, as he well might; but he was a 
plucky fellow, and instead of dropping his club he only 
shifted it to his right hand. He never had a chance to 
strike again with it; for in that same instant Rayburn 
swung his revolver at arm’s-length through the air and 
brought it down on his head with a sound so muffled 
and so hollow that I can liken it only to the staving- 
in of the head of a full cask. For a moment, while 
Rayburn drew back to strike again, the Indian’s body 
swayed heavily; and then all his muscles relaxed, and 
he fell heavily and limply to the ground—while his 
brains spurted out from the ghastly trench made by 
that mighty blow from back to front across the entire 
top of his skull. 


VIII. 


AFTER THE FIGHT. 


RayBuRN stood panting for a moment over the Ind. 
ian’s body; and then, having satisfied himself by a look 
around among our fallen enemies that every one of 
them was either dead or dying, he stooped down beside 
the stream to drink from it, and then to bathe an ugly 
gash in his forehead made by a spear thrust that luck- 
ily had glanced aside. | 

Indeed, we all had wounds or bruises by which we 


AFTER THE FIGHT. 101 


were likely to remember our fight for a good many 
days to come. In addition to the cut on his forehead, 
Rayburn had an arm badly bruised by a crack from 
a club; Young had a cut in the calf of his leg that 
must have been made by one of the Indians after he 
had fallen wounded; Fray Antonio had the slight cut 
in his arm that he received in rescuing Pablo; a blow 
from a club on my shoulder had completely disabled 
my left arm, and my head was beginning to ache from 
the wound in my forehead where the arrow had nipped 
me; and Pablo, by a square knock-down blow on the 
head that tumbled him among the rocks, had a bad 
gash in his cheek and was bruised all over. And yet the 
very first thing that boy did when the fight was ended 
—being still dazed, no doubt, by the blow on his head 
—was to play a bit of “ Rory O’More” on his mouth- 
organ in order to make sure that his beloved “ instru- 
mentito” had not been injured by his fall. The sound 
of this air gave my heart a wrench, as I thought of 
poor Dennis; whose gallant race with death assuredly 
had saved all of us from dying without a chance to 
strike a blow. And both of our Otomi Indians were 
dead too. | 

But while we had suffered thus severely we had the 
satisfaction of knowing that we had inflicted a most 
signal punishment upon our enemies. Of the whole 
company that had attacked us—eighteen in number, 
as we found by counting their bodies—only two remain- 
ed alive when the fight ended; and these two speed- 
ily relieved us of all responsibility concerning them 
by dying of their wounds. As Young tersely expressed 


102 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


it, we had “given the whole outfit a through bill of 
lading to Kingdom Come!” 

Notwithstanding the pain that I was in, the first 
thought that came to me after we had achieved peace (by 
the effective yet somewhat radical process of killing all 
of our enemies) was concerning the strange weapon with 
which Pablo had been fighting; and by his prompt use 
of which in my defence my life had been saved. He 
had laid it upon a rock—while testing the integrity of 
his mouth-organ—and as I now carefully examined it 
I found that my glimpse of it as Pablo had mashed the 
Indian’s head had not deceived me. It truly was a 
maccuahuitl, the primitive Aztec sword, but very un- 
like any description of that weapon that I had ever 
seen. ‘The maccuahuitl, as described by the Span- 
iards at the time of the conquest and as shown by 
the Aztec pictures of it preserved in various museums, 
was a wooden blade from three and a half to four feet 
long and from four to five inches wide. Along its two 
edges, like great saw teeth, fragments of obsidian, 
about three inches long and two inches wide, were 
inserted; and as these were keenly sharp the weapon 
was a most ferocious one. The sword that I held in 
my hand was identical in its essential features with this 
primitive design; but it was shorter, narrower, and 
thinner. What was still more extraordinary about 
it was that, while it seemed to be made of brass, it had 
the bright glitter of gold and the temper and the elas- 
ticity of steel. Being tested by bending, it instantly 
sprung straight again; and notwithstanding the vigor- 
ous use that Pablo had been making of it on the bones 


AFTER THE FIGHT. 103 


of several Indians, the thin edges of the projecting 
teeth were only nicked a little—as the edge of a steel 
sword would have been nicked under like circumstanceg 
—and not one of these teeth was bent out of place, as 
assuredly would have been the case had the metal beem 
ordinary brass. 

Fray Antonio, by this time, had returned to us again 
—looking rather shamefaced because of the part that 
he had taken in the fight—and I eagerly showed him 
this strange weapon that had been so strangely found; 
for Pablo’s account of it was simply that, just as his 
revolver was emptied upon the Indians charging tow- 
ards us, when there was no time to reload, his eyes 
were caught by the glitter of the sword as it stuck in 
a cleft in a rock; whereupon he most gladly seized it— 
and instantly used it to good purpose upon the Indian 
who was so close to ending me with his spear, and sub- 
sequently contrived with it to send two more Indians 
to their account. 

Fray Antonio’s knowledge of the matter having a 
wider practical range than mine, for he knew well the 
contents of the several Mexican museums in which 
specimens of the primitive weapons are preserved, I 
thought it possible that he might be able to match 
this curious maccuahuitl with an account of another 
like it which he somewhere had seen. That there was 
no record in the books of this weapon made of met- 
al I knew very well. But Fray Antonio’s surprise 
over it was greater than my own; and he certainly 
found more in it to please him than I did; for this 
metal maccuahuitl, supposing it to belong to ancient 


104 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


times, settled in his favor a controversy that for some 
time past we had been amicably but earnestly carrying 
on. I had adopted the ingenious theory of my friend 
Bandelier that the serrated edge of the Aztec sword 
was accidental; resulting from the breaking away in 
use of portions of what at first was a continuous edge 
of obsidian. Fray Antonio, on the other hand, had 
held firmly to the ordinarily accepted opinion that the 
sword was such as I have described above (I must con- 
fess regretfully) the primitive weapon to have been. 
My contention therefore was that the sword that 
Pablo had found was not an antique; and I fortified 
my position, as I considered impregnably, by the fact 
that while the Aztecs, before the Spanish conquest, did 
make some slight use of copper and gold, they assured- 
ly had no knowledge whatever of either brass or steel. 
And my natural irritation very well may be imagined, 
by any one familiar with controversies of this nature, 
when I add that Fray Antonio endeavored to cut the 
ground from under me by asserting that, inasmuch as 
the weapon obviously was not made of brass or steel, 
my argument was based upon false premises and con- 
sequently led to illogical conclusions. I am afraid 
that I showed a little temper on this occasion; for 
Fray Antonio manifested a persistence in his defence 
of what I regarded as his wholly untenable position 
that amounted to what I held to be downright pig- 
headedness. And so, for a considerable length of time, 
we stood there, among the bodies of the dead Indians, 
and first one of us and then the other handled the 
sword, and expressed with increasing warmth our views 


AFTER THE FIGHT. 105 


respecting it and each other; and we might have stood 
there much longer had not Young—with the best of 
intentions, no doubt, but in a way that certainly was 
not agreeable—taken upon himself to bring our con- 
troversy for the time being to an end. 

“IT don’t exactly know what you and the Padre are 
jawing about at such a rate, Professor,” he struck in; 
“but as well as I can catch on, it’s about things which 
happened three or four hundred years ago. I don’t 
want to interrupt you, of course; but I do want the 
Padre—he knows something about surgery, as I saw 
the other day when he took that cactus thorn out of 
Pablo—to do something to plug up this hole in my 
lee. It’s bleeding a good deal, and it hurts like the 
very devil. And I guess Rayburn ’d be glad to have 
that slit in his forehead tied up too.” 

To do Fray Antonio justice, he took this interrup- 
tion in better part than I did; for I was deeply inter- 
ested in the argument in which we were engaged, and 
wished to continue it. But when I explained what 
Young wanted, he turned to him at once, and very ten- 
derly as well as very skilfully dressed his wound ; and 
then bandaged the gash in Rayburn’s forehead, and 
the cut in Pablo’s cheek. Pablo decidedly objected 
to this bandaging, for it put a peremptory stop for a 
while to his playing on his mouth-organ. For me no 
surgery was required. Fray Antonio carefully felt 
my shoulder while he moved my arm—thereby hurt- 
ing me most horribly—and as the result of his investi- 
gations he assured me that the bones were neither 
broken nor out of place. 


106 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


Rayburn also examined the maccuahuitl with much 
interest. ‘Of course it is not brass,” he said, “and of 
course it cannot possibly be phosphor-bronze. But, if 
such a thing were a metallurgical possibility, I should 
say that it was gold—treated in some manner that 
gives it as great a hardness as bronze receives when 
treated with phosphorus, but with some chemical 
change wrought in its constitution that gives it also 
the tempered quality of steel. Nothing but gold, 
you see,” he added, “could lie around out-of-doors 
this way and not get tarnished by oxidization.” 

‘‘What’s the reason that it’s not some queer thing 
belonging to the folks we’re looking for?” Young 
asked ; and his question expressed a thought that al- 
ready had found a lodging in my own mind. For such 
good-luck as this would be I was quite willing to con- 
cede that Fray Antonio was right in his unpleasantly 
positive views in regard to the shape of the Aztee 
swords. And what Young said also put me sharply 
in mind of the graving on the rock of the King’s sym- 
bol, that we had found only in the same moment to 
lose it again. To this matter I now adverted ; and I 
said some very unpleasant things about the Indians 
who had prevented us from following the trail, that 
we had sought for so laboriously, when we did find it 
at last—-and who still, for we doubted not that the 
main body was in wait for us lower down the valley, 
prevented us from returning to the spot where we had 
seen the sign and thence systematically continuing our 
search. 

“If I was you, Professor,” said Young as I ceased — 


AFTER THE FIGHT. 107 


speaking, ‘“‘I wouldn’t be so everlastin’ly down on 
these poor devils of Indians for what they’ve done. 
They killed Dennis, an’ that’s a pretty bad business ; 
an’ they got away with our two mozos, too; an’ 
they’ve pretty well battered th’ rest of us. But I 
take it that we’ve about evened things up by killin’ 
eighteen of ’em—or six of their crowd dead for each 
one dead in ours. I guess we can call that part of th’ 
business about square. But what [’m gettin’ at is, if 
it hadn’t been for the Indians we’d never have come 
up this valley ; an’ so we'd never have struck th’ 
King’s symbol trail at all.” 

“But what good did it do us to find it, when we 
could not follow it?” I asked. ‘“‘ We cannot go back 
to examine the sign without risking our lives; and un- 
less we do examine it we cannot know where the next 
one is, and so the trail is lost.” 

“Tve just been waitin’,” said Young, “‘t’ see if I 
was th’ only man in this party that God-a-mighty’d 
given a pair of eyes to. I guess lam. Suppose you 
just get up, Professor, an’ turn around, an’ take a look 
at that place where there’s a brown mark on th’ side 
of th’ rock; an’ suppose th’ rest of you look there 
too. If that isn’t th’ King’s symbol, just as plain as 
th’ noses in all your faces, Pll eat every dead Indian 
in this cafion.” 

And Young spoke the truth. Just above the cleft 
whence Pablo had taken the sword, graven so deeply 
in the rock that after all the weathering of centuries it 
still remained distinct and clear, was identically the 
same figure that Fray Francisco in the far past time 


108 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE, 


had represented in his letter, and that was repeated 
also on the far more ancient piece of gold. Above it 
was cut an arrow that pointed directly up the cafion. 

It was a good thing that something came to cheer 
us just then; for what with the death of Dennis and 
of our two poor Indians, and our own hurts, and the 
melancholy feeling that must oppress men always— 
save those of cruel and hardened natures — when a 
fight is ended in which they have spilled freely human 
blood, we all were oppressed sensibly by a consuming 
sadness. 

But here was cheer indeed. Not only had we surely 
found the trail at last, but we found it leading in pre- 
cisely the direction that at that moment we desired to 
go. For us to return down the valley to the open 
country, we knew was full of most signal danger; for 
the Indians who so unaccountably had declined to take 
part in attacking us assuredly were lying in wait for 
us by the way. Our only chance to escape them was 
to strike into the mountains; and the sign that we 
now had gave promise that we should find some sort 
of a path along which we might go. Therefore it was 
with good heart that we set about getting as far into 
the depths of the cafion as possible before night should 
be wholly upon us; trusting, in regard to possible pur- 
suit, somewhat to the superstition of the Indians which 
so unaccountably yet so obviously had been aroused, 
and also to the wholesome dread that they must have 
of us upon finding that every one of their companions © 
had been slain. The bodies of our poor Otomis we 
placed in a deep fissure in the rock, and there heaped 


THE CAVE OF THE DEAD. 109 


stones upon them, while Fray Antonio said over them 
the’ briefer office ; but the body of Dennis we carried 
with us, that we might give him a more tender and 
reverent burial in gratitude for his brave struggle to 
save our lives when he knew that his own life was 
lost. As for the eighteen dead Indians—who had in- 
vited the death that so promptly had come to them— 
we did not bother ourselves about them at all. We 
left them to the coyotes. 


IX. 
THE CAVE OF THE DEAD. 


Very dismal was our procession of faintly seen fig- 
ures moving cautiously through that wild solitude. At 
its head went Rayburn, leading his horse, on which was 
Dennis’s dead body; all of us, being bruised and cut 
and bleeding, walked slowly and painfully; and behind 
us, ghastly forms torn by bullets and crushed by blows, 
lay the slain Indians in all manner of unnatural atti- 
tudes, made yet more hideous and fantastical by the 
gathering gloom of night. Indeed, night now was so 
close upon us that had not the cafion in which we were 
run east and west, we would have been for some time 
past in darkness. As it was, though shut off from the 
west by the great range of mountains, a faint light came 
down into its depths from the still bright eastern sky, 
where lingered ruddy reflections of the sunset: and so 
we could see to pick our way, along the edge of the 


110 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


little stream, among the rough masses of rock and 
trunks of trees which had fallen from above. 

Our march ended sooner than we had counted on. 
Before we had accomplished more than half a mile of 
this rough travelling, there loomed before us a wall of 
rock which shut in the end of the cafion, and which 
rose as high and as sheer as did the cafion’s sides. Our 
hearts sank within us, for we perceived that we were in 
a cul-de-sac; whence escape was possible only along 
the way by which we had come—and so to return, with 
the Indians still in wait for us, was to walk straight into 
the jaws of death. And, further, if our course in this 
direction was cut off, it was evident that the King’s 
symbol graved upon the rock at the entrance of the 
cafion was a useless and misleading sign. 

In the hope that we might find a sharp turn, not to 
be perceived until we were close upon it, we pressed 
on through the dusk until we came to the very end of 
the cafion, and the dark wall of rock that barred our 
way rose directly above our heads. And then we 
found, not a turn in the cafion, but a narrow opening 
(through which came forth the little stream) into the 
body of the mountain itself. Yet we hesitated about 
entering this black gap—for who could tell what 
depths, unseen in that dense darkness, we might not 
plunge into headlong ? 

Much dry pine wood, branches and whole trees, lay 
about us in the cafion; and of this apt material Ray- 
burn presently constructed a great torch. Lighting 
this in the open cafion was not to be thought of, for 
while we felt tolerably certain that the main body of 


THE CAVE OF THE DEAD, 111 


our enemies had not followed us, we could not be whol- 
ly certain that they were not close upon our heels and 
ready to open upon us with a volley of arrows and spears, 
Rayburn therefore struck a wax-match—with which 
excellent article of Mexican manufacture we were sup- 
plied plentifully—and with this to light his way, en- 
tered the narrow pass; and in his wake the rest of us 
followed. Almost in a moment the walls on each side 
of us spread out beyond the reach of the narrow circle 
of light, and we perceived that we were come into a 
cave. But before we could at all discern our surround- 
ings the match was blown out by a sudden suck of 
wind setting in from the entrance, and we were in thick 
darkness. The air around us was so sweet and so fresh 
that we knew that the cave must be large, and with 
more than one opening—as, indeed, the suck of wind 
inward through the passage by which we entered clear- 
ly showed. While Rayburn struck another match, 
wherewith to light the torch, we all stood still in our 
places; and certain tremors went through our breasts 
because of the eeriness of our surroundings. 

When the great torch blazed up, and threw every- 
where save towards the high roof a flood of light, a 
real and rational fear took possession of us. The cave 
was nearly circular, and at its back, directly facing the 
entrance, was a roughly hewn mass of stone on which 
rested a huge stone figure—identical with the figures in 
the Mexican National Museum to which Le Plongeon, 
the discoverer of one of them, at Chichen- Itza, has 
given the name of Chac-Mool. But what filled us with 
dread was not this impassive stone image. Our alarm 


112 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


eame from a much more natural cause, as we beheld, 
squatted on their haunches in long semicircular rows, 
facing the great stone idol, more than a hundred Ind- 
ians. Truly, considering that our rifles were outside 
the cave and that we had with us only our revolvers, 
our momentary thrill of terror was highly natural. 

Yet it was only momentary. The Indians, undis- 
turbed by our presence and by the sudden blaze of 
light, remained unmoved in silent worship of their 
god; and Rayburn, the first of us to recover equanim- 
ity, set all our fears to flight as he exclaimed: “These 
are not the fighting kind. Every man Jack of ’em is 
as dead as Julius Cesar. We’ve struck an Indian 
bone-yard.” 

Here, then, was the reason why a part of the force 
that had attacked us had drawn off when we made our 
stand at the mouth of the cafion that led to this home 
of the dead. Yet when, by the light of the torch, we 
examined our silent fellow-tenants of the cave, it did 
not seem that they had been placed there in recent 
times. Indeed, the more that Fray Antonio and I 
looked closely at their wrappings and noted the way in 
which their mummied forms had been ranged before 
this idol—that certainly belonged to a primitive time 
—the more were we inclined to believe that this weird 
sepulchre belonged to the very far back past. But for 
the moment it mattered not to us whence these dead 
forms came: the essential matter was that while we 
remained in the cave with them we were in absolute 
safety. 

“ Well,” said Young, when we had reached this com- 


THE CAVE OF THE DEAD. Lis 


forting conclusion, “since it’s a sure thing that we’re 
all right here, I move that we make ourselves com- 
fortable. Let’s bring in th’ stock, an’ get th’ packs 
off ; an’ then we’ll build a fire an’ eat another supper. 
Fightin’ Indians is hungry work, an’ I feel as if I 
hadn’t had anything to eat for a week”—which sug- 
gestions were so reasonable that we at once proceeded 
to act upon them. 

It was hard work for us, wounded and sore and tired 
as we were, to unfasten the pack-cords; and still harder 
work to collect the wood for our fire. But we man- 
aged to accomplish it all at last; and most comfort- 
ing and refreshing was our supper amid those extraor- 
dinary surroundings. There was even cheerfulness 
about our meal—and yet over in the shadows at the 
back of the cave, touched now and then by a bright- 
er flash of firelight, lay before the heathen altar of old 
the body of our poor Dennis; and close beside us were 
the long rows of dead Indians. I sometimes have 
thought that it was strange that we then had any heart 
to eat at all, surrounded by so desolate a company. 
But there is that about killing one’s fellow-creatures, 
and being in imminent peril of being killed one’s self, 
I have found, that blunts for a while the souls of those 
who survive and makes them careless of death’s awful 
mystery. As the fire crackled and blazed, giving out 
a plentiful warmth that in that chill place was most 
grateful to our aching bodies, our spirits seemed to 
brighten with its brightness ; and when the rich smell 
of strong coffee mingled with the smell of stewing 
meats told that Young’s cooking was nearly ended, 

R 


114 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


we sniffed hungrily and eagerly; and when we act- 
ually fell to upon our meal I remember that we even 
laughed over it. 

Yet it is but just to Fray Antonio to say that his 
fine spirit did not fall to the level of grossness that 
ours were brought to by what, as it seems to me, was 
an instinctive gladness on the part of our fleshly 
bodies that, for a while longer, they would not return 
to the dust whereof they were made. Through our 
meal he sat gravely silent, yet with so sweet and so 
tender an expression upon his gentle face that in his 
silence there was no suggestion of reproof. And when 
our meal was ended, and we were for stretching out 
upon our blankets before the fire and smoking our 
pipes comfortably, he reminded us, with no touch of 
harshness in his voice, that a last duty was claimed of 
us by our dead companion. 

And, truly, the funeral ceremonies over Dennis in 
that strange place of burial made the most curious 
ending of a man that ever I saw. In the fine dry sand 
wherewith the cave was bedded, directly in front of 
the altar on which was the heathen idol, we dug his 
grave—toilsomely and with pain, for all of our bodies 
were hurt and sore. While we labored, two great 
torches flared upon the altar, propped against the idol; 
and long, flickering rays of light shot out to us across 
the mummied bodies of the dead Indians—striking 
across their gleaming teeth, so that they seemed to 
smile at us—from the huge blaze of the fire. 

From our stores Fray Antonio took ont a little salt, 
and from the clear spring that bubbled up within the 


THE CAVE OF THE DEAD. 115 


cave a cup of water, which elements he blessed and 
mingled as the rites of his Church prescribed; and 
with the water thus consecrated he sprinkled the body 
lying before the heathen altar, while his strong, sweet 
voice chanted the De Profundis so that all the cave 
rang with the rich melody of the holy strain, and our 
own breasts were thrilled by it. Gently we bore the 
body of poor Dennis from its resting-place before the 
altar to its last resting-place in the grave that we had 
dug there, while Fray Antonio said the Miserere ; and 
as with our pack-ropes we lowered the body into the 
earth, the priest sang the Benedictus, with its promise 
of a better life to come; and then a prayer ended all, 
and we filled in the grave. 

“1m Congregational, myself,” Young said, when our 
work was finished; “at least I was brought up that 
way ; an’ ’'m down on th’ Scarlet Woman from first 
t? last. But I go in for lettin’ folks believe what 
they’ve got a mind to; an’ when it comes t’ buryin’ 
em it’s only square t’ give ’em th’ sort of send - off 
that they'd really like. For a Catholic, I guess Dennis 
was a pretty good one; an’ I must say I think it would 
’a’ done him good to see th’ way we’ve given him a 
first-class funeral, just in th’ shape he’d ’a’ fixed things 
up for himself. But I guess what we’ve been at would 
have everlastin’ly shook up these dead fellows here, if 
they could have come t’ life for about five minutes 
while it was goin’ on!” 

There was an element of grim humor in this suggest- 
ion of Young’s that tickled my fancy; and it was, in- 
deed, allowing for the quaintness of his phrasing of it, 


116 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


but an expression of my own thoughts. But my re- 
flection was upon the curious incongruity of it all, 
and upon the way in which religious faiths supplant 
each other; even as the different races of men who for- 
mulate them and believe in them supplant each other 
upon the face of the earth. Together in this same 
cave were now the dead of two faiths and two races. 
Who could tell what dead of other faiths and races 
yet unborn would lie here also before the end of time 
should come ? 

When all was ended we were glad enough to lie 
down to give our battered bodies rest in sleep. We 
felt sure that no attack would be made upon us; yet 
we rolled some fragments of rock into the narrow en- 
trance to the cave, arranging them in such a way that 
they would fall with a crash should any attempt be 
made to move them from outside. And, this precau- 
tion having been taken, we lay down upon our blank- 
ets thankfully, and never troubled ourselves to keep 
any watch at all. 

It was brilliantly light when we awoke, for the rays 
of the just-risen sun were striking strongly into the 
cave through its entrance-way ; and much light came 
also through a crevice higher up, and through a great 
hole in the vastly high roof. Viewed in this clearer 
light, there was a horrible ghastliness about the mum- 
mies ranged in their orderly rows, and presided over 
by the coarsely carved, coarsely conceived stone figure 
that in life they had worshipped as their god. On 
this image the sunshine fell full, and we perceived 
that its position evidently had been chosen earefully, 


THE CAVE OF THE DEAD. 117 


so that the very first ray of light from the rising sun 
would strike upon it. No doubt, in ancient times, 
this cave had been a temple as well as a place of sep- 
ulchre, 

We were well rested by our long and sound sleep ; 
but the pain which was everywhere in our bodies, from 
our many bruises, and from our wounds, and from the 
aching stiffness of our muscles, made life for a time 
almost intolerable. Moreover, the languorous reaction 
following the undue exaltation that came of our bat- 
tling and escape was upon us; so that our pain of body 
was accompanied by a most sombre and melancholy 
cast of mind, Yet, again, did the more balanced and 
delicate temperament of Fray Antonio shine out by 
contrast with our coarser make; for while he also suf- 
fered pains of the body, his mind was filled with a 
serene cheerfulness that found expression in kindly, 
comforting words, by which our flagging spirits were 
strengthened and upheld. There was in Fray Anto- 
nio’s nature, surely, a fund of gentle lovingness the 
like of which I never knew in any other man. 

And, in truth, our plight was such that we stood in 
much need of comforting. Not only were we sick 
with our many hurts, but we were also prisoners. By 
the full light of day we examined carefully the cave, 
and found no outlet to it; and we examined carefully, 
also, the walls of the cafion throughout its full length, 
and made sure that there was no path leading upward 
whereby a man could go. And escape down the val- 
ley was cut off, for the Indians—who knew, no doubt, 
the manner ef place we were caught in—were on guard 


118 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSRE. 


and watching for us; which fact came sharply to our 
knowledge with a half-dozen arrows that dropped 
among us as we went out a little way beyond the 
mouth of the cafion to see if the way was open to us. 
Had we been whole, we might have made a dash and 
fought our way through ; but even this poor plan was 
not possible when our bodies were stiff and sore. Our 
one comforting thought was that, as we had an abun- 
dance of provisions and an ample supply of water, we 
could hold out for so long a time that the Indians at 
last would get tired of waiting for us. If they vent- 
ured to attack us in the cave, we knew that we could 
defend ourselves against any number of them success- 
fully. If they simply abandoned the siege, then we 
would be free without fighting at all. But it was dis- 
mal work waiting in that dismal place for one or the 
other of these two ends to come. 

And the fact that the King’s symbol had proved a 
false guide also was a source of deep concern to us. 
By the full strength of daylight we again examined 
the graving at the entrance to the cafion, and there 
was no mistaking the way in which the arrow pointed. 
And, what was even more perplexing and disheart- 
ening, we found the graving repeated at the entrance 
to the cave, and the arrow pointing directly towards 
the statue of Chac-Mool. It was impossible that this 
cave, with mummies only for inhabitants, could be the 
walled city wherein the reserve force of men and treas- 
ure had been hid; and yet here, obviously, was the 
end of the trail. Of this we convinced ourselves by 
searching the cave exhaustively for another outlet— 


THE SWINGING STATUE. 119 


even sounding the walls in the hope that we might 
find a passage that had been artificially concealed. As 
Rayburn tersely put it, we were no better than so 
many rats in a trap with terriers waiting for us out- 
side. 


X. 


THE SWINGING STATUE. 


Four more days went by very wearily. Our wounds 
were healing—for we all were in good condition as the 
result of our vigorous life in the open air—but they 
still kept us in constant pain, and so tended to increase 
our melancholy. Out in the valley, beyond the mouth 
of the cafion, the Indians maintained their watchful 
guard. Rayburn tried the experiment of holding a 
hat and coat out on a pole, standing himself under 
cover of the rock, and in an instant a pair of arrows 
went through the dummy; and as one of these came 
from the right and the other from the left, it was evi- 
dent that in both directions the valley was picketed. 

We were safe enough for the time being, of course. 
Even should the Indians overcome their superstitious 
dread and enter the cafion—which was not probable, 
for they had not even ventured to remove their dead 
—they could not possibly make a successful attack 
upon us in the cave. Behind the breastwork that we 
had built in the narrow entrance, and armed with our 
repeating rifles and revolvers, we were absolutely se- 
cure. 


120 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


“It’s not a bad thing that we’re safe,” said Young, 
an’ that we’ve got plenty of grub an’ water, an’ 
even lots of firewood; if we’ve got t’ be shut up here 
we might as well be comfortable. But what I want is 
a through ticket for home. This treasure business has 
gone back on us th’ worst kind. That old Fray Fran- 
cisco had his eye shut up by th’ tall talk of th’ fellow 
who pretended to be converted ; and th’ Cacique just 
promiscuously lied. That’s about the size of it. An’ 
for bein’ fools enough to swallow their stuff, here we 
are, as Rayburn says, like rats in a cage.” 

There was so much probability in what Young said 
that I did not attempt to argue with him; yet was I 
convinced that in what Fray Francisco had written, 
and still more in what the dying Cacique had said to 
me, there was a substantial element of truth. 

Finding that nobody replied to him, for all of us 
were sore at heart and so disposed to silence, Young 
turned to the statue of Chac-Mool and proceeded to 
abuse it vigorously, on the ground that it was an idol- 
atrous product of the Aztec race that was at the root 
of all our troubles. For, as he truly said, had there 
been no Aztecs to begin with, our departure on a wild- 
goose chase after an Aztec treasure-house would have 
been an impossibility. His attention having been thus 
fixed upon the idol, his habit of investigation got the 
better of his ill-will towards it, and he mounted the 
altar to examine it more closely—continuing the while 
to address it in language that was eminently unparlia- 
mentary. 

“ A pretty-looking sort a specimen you are!” he said, 


THE SWINGING STATUE. a 


in a tone of vast contempt. “But you’re about what 
I'd expect folks like that friend of th’ Professor’s, th’ 
Cacique, t’ worship. It takes a low sort of a heathen, 
even in his blindness, t? bow down to a stone like you 
—with your twisted head, an’ your stubby legs, an’ 
your little fryin’-pan over your stomach. Why, where 
I come from they wouldn’t have you even for a stone 
settee in a park. No, you’re not fit even t’ sit on— 
unless, maybe, it’s on th’ flat top of your crooked 
head ;” and by way of testing this possibility, Young 
seated himself on the head of Chac-Mool. 

And then a very extraordinary thing happened. 
The idol, and the great slab of stone on which it rested 
and of which it was a part, slowly moved; the head 
sinking, and the other end of the slab, on which the 
legs were carved, rising in the air! Young sprang up 
with a cry as he felt the stone sinking beneath him; 
and the figure, relieved of his weight, settled back into 
its former position with a slight jar. In the moment 
that the slab was in the air there had come from under 
it a gleam of light. 

In the excitement wrought by this strange accident 
our hurts were forgotten; and we eagerly clambered 
upon the altar to investigate the matter further, while 
hope and wonder thrilled our hearts. 

““Now, then, Young,” said Rayburn, “try it again. 
It looks as though this idol wasn’t all the blackguard 
things you’ve been calling it, by a long shot.” 

“No, Pll be hanged if ll try it again,” Young an- 
swered,. “Try it yourself, if you want to. How dol 
know what’s goin’ t’ happen with a stone thing that 


122 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


goes tippin’ around that way? I don’t mind sayin’ 
that ?m a good deal jolted, an’ don’t feel like foolin’ 
with it any more. Try it yourself, if you want to, I 
say.” 

“All right,” Rayburn answered. ‘You and the 
Professor stand here where you can grab me if any- 
thing goes wrong. It looks to me as though there 
was a chance for us of some sort here, and I mean to 
see what it is.” 

Young and I stood on each side of Rayburn and 
held him by the arms as he seated himself on the 
ido’s head. Borne down by his weight, the head 
slowly sank, the whole fore-end of the stone slab 
falling away into the rock, and the after-end corre- 
spondingly rising and disclosing a squared opening, 
through which came a strong burst of light. When 
the head was down to the level of the rock, and the 
slab stood up at an angle of nearly fifty degrees, the 
movement ceased. Looking into the opening we saw 
a flight of a dozen stone steps. On the bottom step 
the sun shone brightly, and in our faces blew a draught 
of fresh, sweet air. On the rock, beside the stair-way, 
was carved the King’s symbol, with the arrow point- 
ing downward. 

“ Hurrah !” cried Young. ‘ Here’s a way out—an’ 
it looks as if that old monk an’ th’ Cacique weren’t 
such a pair of blasted liars after all !” 

Rayburn jumped up to have a look with the rest of 
us; but before he could see anything the statue had 
fallen into place again and the opening was closed. 
“No matter, we know how to work it, now,” he said. 


THE SWINGING STATUE. 123 


“We must prop it up somehow; that’s all. I want to 
have a look at this thing. There’s some mighty good 
engineering shown in the way the centre of gravity of 
that stone has been calculated; and there’s good me- 
chanism in the way it’s hung. Here she goes again. 
Just chock it with a bit of rock when I swing it open.” 

“Well, what I’m interested in,” said Young, “is find- 
in’ out what sort of a place it’ll get us into. It looks 
to me as if we might be goin’ to strike the treasure 
right smack here.” 

Much the same notion was in all of our heads by 
this time, and we were full of eagerness—the statue 
having been swung again, and propped in place with a 
fragment of rock—as we went down the little stair. 
But what we found was only a continuation of the 
cafion—as though, by some curious freak of nature, 
the thin walls of rock enclosing the cave had been left 
thus in the very middle of it. Rayburn drew our at- 
tention to the fact that we were on the crest of a 
divide, for a spring that bubbled up here flowed away 
from us; and this also was a cheering sign that the 
cafion had an outlet. How far away the outlet might 
be we could not tell; for the cafion, half a mile or so 
from where we stood, bent sharply to the right. But 
being thus assured that a way of some sort out of our 
prison was open to us, we turned to examine the work 
of the skilled mechanics who in some far past time had 
set this swinging statue in its place. From below, 
the simple apparatus, that yet for its fitting required 
so high a grade of scientific knowledge, was plainly dis- 
closed to us. Into the great slab of stone, presumably 


194 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


running through it from side to side, was set a round 
bar of metal—the same bright metal of which the 
sword was made—more than a foot in diameter; and 
this worked in two concave metal sockets in much the 
same manner that the sockets of a gun-carriage hold 
the trunnions of a gun. What struck Rayburn as 
especially remarkable was the trueness to a circle of 
both the sockets and the bar; both showing, as he 
declared, that they had been worked upon a lathe. 
And he was puzzled, as in the case of the sword, as to 
the composition of the metal that thus defied oxidiza- 
tion through long periods of time. ‘‘ Gold is the only 
thing that fills the bill,” he said; “but a bar of gold, 
even of that size, would bend double under such a 
strain. I’d give ten dollars for a chance to analyze it 
—for there’s a bigger fortune in putting a metal like 
that on the market than there is in finding this treasure 
that we’re hunting for: especially if it turns out that 
there isn’t any treasure to find.” 

“Now, don’t you go t’ runnin’ down that treasure,” 
Young struck in. ‘Just now treasure stock isup. Me 
an’ that idol have just boomed th’ market. Dm sorry 
I called Jack Mullins, or whatever his name is, such a 
lot of cuss-word names. I take ’em all back. He isn’t 
just th’ sort of an idol that I’d pick out t’ worship 
myself, at least not as a steady thing ; but there are 
good points about him—especially th’ way he tips up. 
I always did like an idol that tipped up. He’s done 
th’ square thing by us in gettin’ us out all right from 
th’ worst sort of a hole; an’ I guess th’ best thing 
we can do is t’? yank our traps out of that cave an’ 


THE SWINGING STATUE. 125 


get started again. Why, for all we know, th’ treasure 
may be right around that corner.” 

There was no doubt as to the soundness of Young’s 
suggestion in regard to resuming our march; but the 
very serious fact confronted us that we now must do 
our marching on foot. To get the horses and mules 
down through the narrow opening was simply impos- 
sible, and there was nothing for us but to leave them 
behind. Rayburn looked very grave over this phase 
of the matter, for leaving the mules meant also that 
we must leave the greater part of our ammunition and 
stores. That these things would be abundantly safe 
in the cave, for any length of time, was not to the 
purpose; the essential matter was that we would be 
deprived of them. It was hard, too, to think that our 
animals would fall into the hands of the Indians—for 
our only course with them must be to turn them loose 
in the cafion, whence they certainly would go out in 
search of pasture into the valley, and so be captured ; 
but it was still harder to think that we must go our- 
selves on foot and with a scant outfit of supplies. 

It was not very cheerfully, therefore, that we went 
back into the cave and bégan to sort out from our packs 
the articles which would be absolutely necessary to our 
preservation in the rough work among the mountains 
that probably was before us; and our shoulders already 
ached a little in anticipation of the heavy loads which 
they must bear. 

It was while we were thus engaged that Pablo beg- 
ged that I would step aside with him for a moment 
that he might speak to my ear alone. I saw that there 


126 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


were tears upon his cheeks, and as he spoke he seareely 
could restrain his sobs. 

“ Sefior,” he said, “you know El Sabio ?” 

“Surely, Pablo.” 

“You know, sefior, that he is a very small ass,” 

“Tt is true.” 

“And you know—you know, sefior, how very ten- 
derly we love each other. Since I came away from my 
father and my mother, in Guadalajara, and from my lit- 
tle brother and sister there, El Sabio is everything in 
the world to me, sefior. I—TI cannot leave him, sefior. 
I should die if we were parted; and El Sabio would 
die also. And you say that you have perceived that 
he is a very small ass. Do not ask me to leave him, 
senior.” 

“ But we cannot take him with us, Pablo. What 
would you have ?” . 

“That is it, sefor; truly, I think that we can take 
him with us. You see, he is so little; and it is quite 
wonderful through how small a place El Sabio can 
crawl. He can creep like a kitten, sefior, and he can 
make himself into a very little bunch. And so I think 
that he can—if we help him, you know, sefior—and 
speak to him so that he will not be alarmed, and will 
try to do his very best to make a small bunch of him- 
self—I think that we can get him down through the 
hole, and so take him with us. But if we cannot, sefior, 
then—you must forgive me, sefior—I love him so very 
dearly, you know—then I will stay with him here. 
It would be better so than that El Sabio should think 
I no longer loved him. And he would think that, 


THE SWINGING STATUE. 137 


sefior, were I to go with you and leave him here among 
these dreadful dead gentlemen alone.” 

It had not occurred to any of us that El Sabio might 
be condensed sufficiently to go through the narrow way; 
but if he truly were the collapsable donkey that Pablo 
declared him to be, we had a good deal to be thankful 
for. He was a sturdy little creature, and his small 
back could bear easily twice as much as any two of 
ours. With his assistance we certainly would be able 
to carry with us all of our ammunition and arms—of 
which defensive stuff we could not well afford to spare 
the smallest part. 

And El Sabio, after Pablo had made a long expla- 
nation of the case to him, and had told him precisely 
what we expected him to do—to all of which he listen- 
ed gravely and with an astonishing air of comprehend- 
ing what was said to him—seemed to enter into the 
spirit of the situation, and to try his very best to meet 
its requirements. It is a puzzle to me to this day how 
Kl Sabio managed to shrink himself so that we got him 
through that narrow hole; but he certainly did manage 
it—and then went down the stone stair-way backward, 
as though he had been trained to be a trick donkey 
from his youth up. When the feat was accomplished, 
and he stood safely out in the cafion, the expressions 
of love, and of congratulation upon his cleverness, 
which Pablo lavished upon him were enough to have 
turned completely a less serious-minded donkey’s head. 

Such of our stores as we were compelled to leave 
behind us, including our saddles, and the pack-saddles, 
and all the heavier portion of our camp equipage, we 


128 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


heaped in one corner of the cave and piled rocks over; 
and then we turned our poor horses and the mules loose 
in the cafion, feeling certain that their instinct would 
lead them out to the valley in search of food. It went 
to our hearts to know that these good beasts of ours 
were doomed to hard service under Indian masters to 
the end of their days. 

All being thus in readiness for our advance, we went 
down the stair-way beneath the swinging statue, and 
from beneath pulled out the piece of rock which prop- 
ped up the great mass of stone. With a heavy jar it 
fell and closed the passage-way, and we prepared to start. 
Just then Fray Antonio remembered that he had left 
on a ledge in the cave—that we had used as a shelf for 
the storage of various small matters during our sojourn 
there—a little volume that he dearly loved: the Medi- 
tations of Thomas @ Kempis. He was full of remorse 
for his forgetfulness, and did not ask that we should 
turn back to get his book for him; yet his distress 
over the loss of it was so evident that we had not the 
heart to go on. 

“Tt will take only ten minutes to go back,” said Ray- 
burn, and as he spoke he ran up the stair-way and set his 
shoulders to sway up the stone. In a moment he call- 
ed: “Just come here, Young, and help, will you? It 
don’t work as easily from this side.” But even with 
Young’s help the stone did not move. Then the rest 
of us joined these two, and all five of us together pushed 
with all our strength—and the stone did not yield by 
so much as the breadth of a hair! And then rather a 
queer look came into Rayburn’s face, and he said: “I 


THE SUBMERGED CITY. 129 


think that I understand what is the matter. The point 
of leverage falls beyond the edge of the hole. From 
where we have a chance to push, we are working 
against the whole weight of the stone. We might as 
well try to lift the mountain itself!” And then he 
added, “I guess we'd better give this thing up and 
start.” 

Very curious feelings were in our breasts as we pick- 
ed up our packs and set off along the cafion; for we 
knew that by that way only could we go, and that, no 
matter what was ahead of us, our retreat was cut off. 


XI. 
THE SUBMERGED CITY. 


A SWEET, warm wind blew in our faces as we set 
off along the cafion; the sun shone joyously upon us, 
and there was that fresh, tingling quality in the air 
that is peculiar to regions high above the level of the 
sea. In spite of the fact that the way behind us was 
irrevocably barred, and that no matter what dangers 
were ahead of us we had no option but to face them, 
our spirits were strong within us, and we went blithe- 
ly on our way. Young, who was in advance, began 
to whistle ‘“ Yankee Doodle”; and presently, from the 
rear of our procession, where Pablo walked beside the 
heavily laden El Sabio, there broke forth a mouth- 
organ accompaniment to this spirited melody. 

The bed of the cafion, through which a little stream 

9 


130 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


ran, fell away before us along a slight down grade; 
which descent, since we found also a good foot-way 
beside the stream, made walking comparatively easy 
notwithstanding our heavy back-loads. Now and then 
our way would be barred by masses of rock fallen 
from above, and by whole trees blown down from their 
insecure roothold on the rocky cliffs; and twice we 
came to steep descents which would have given us 
trouble had we not brought along the ropes wherewith 
our packs had been bound. Shifting El Sabio down 
these places was our hardest task; but with the ropes, 
and the intelligent part that he took in the perform- 
ance, we managed it successfully. 

So we went on for half a dozen miles or more through 
the windings of the cafion, but keeping all the while a 
sharp lookout ahead—for in the mouth of this end of 
the cafion, supposing it to open as at the other end 
upon a grassy valley, we well enough might come upon 
an Indian camp. And that we had come upon such a 
camp we felt quite sure when, late in the afternoon, 
Rayburn signalled us from his advanced position—he 
having gone to the head of the line in Young’s place 
—to stand still until he should reconnoitre a little. 
Being thus halted, we unslung our rifles and loosened 
our pistols in their holsters, so that we might be ready 
in case fighting suddenly should begin; and Rayburn 
went on around a turn in the cafion, and for a while 
we lost sight of him. 

Presently he returned and signalled us to join him, 
but to move cautiously. When we came up with him 
he led us to the bend in the cajion, and there a broad 


THE SUBMERGED SITY. 131 


view opened to us; for the cafion suddenly widened 
into a great valley, that was everywhere, so far as we 
could see, surrounded by walls of rock almost perpen- 
dicular and vastly high. In the bottom of the valley 
was a broad expanse of delectably green meadow-land, 
broken here and there by groves of trees; and in the 
valley’s middle part, reaching from side to side of it, 
was a lovely lake, whereof the blue was flecked by 
white reflections of certain little idly drifting clouds: 
the sight of all which greenness and fair water and 
broad range of sky—after being for so long a season 
pent up in rocky fastnesses and wandering over brown, 
sun-baked plains—fairly brought tears into my eyes 
because of its fresh and open loveliness. And in the 
tender feeling that thus stirred my heart, as I could 
see in the quick glance that he gave me, Fray Antonio 
also keenly sympathized; for his nature was very open 
at all times to such gentle influences. 

But Rayburn and Young, as was evident from their 
anxious looks, were thinking only of the dangers which 
this lovely valley might hold in store for us; for the 
shore of the lake nearest to us had many houses built 
upon it, and we could see faintly, for the width of the 
lake was nearly two miles, that there were other houses 
upon its farther shore. Standing hidden behind a rock, 
Rayburn examined the valley carefully through a field- 
glass for a long while. 

“I must say this place beats me,” he said at last, as 
he put the glass down from his eyes. ‘‘There’s no 
doubt about there being a town down there; but I 
can’t make out a sign of a single living thing. And 


182 THE AZTEC TREASUBRE-HOUSE. 


what is still queerer, the houses seem to go right down 
into the lake. If you’ll take the glass, Professor, you’lh 
see that a few of them, on this side, stand all right on 
dry ground; and then, farther down the sloping bank, 
are a lot in the water; and beyond these there seem to 
be some roofs just showing above the level of the lake. 
And as far as I can make out, things are just the same 
over on the far shore. It looks as if the lake had risen 
after the town was built.” 

As I looked through the glass I saw that what Ray- 
burn had said was true; and I observed with much in- 
terest that many of the houses were large, and that all 
seemed to be well built of stone. Their construction 
reminded me of the buildings which M. Charnay ex- 
amined at Tula, and I was eager to get down to them 
and examine them closely. Young and Fray Antonio 
took the glass, in turn, and as none of us saw any signs 
of life in the valley, we decided to go on. And we 
were mightily stimulated in this resolve by finding, 
just at the end of the cafion, where the sharp descent 
began, a graving of the King’s symbol on the rock, 
with the arrow pointing directly down the steep path. 

“Here’s a walled city, for sure,” said Young; “and 
if this is where th’ treasure-house is, we won’t raise a 
row because th’ folks have gone off an’ left it. Just 
whoop up that burro of yours, Pablo, an’ let’s be get- 
tin’ along. It’s a pity we had t’ leave th’ mules be- 
hind. If th’ treasure’s in silver, we can’t get away 
with much of it with nothin’ but El Sabio t’ pack it 
on.” . 

Pablo did not understand this speech, of course, but 


THE SUBMERGED CITY. 133 


he recognized his own name and the name of El Sabio, 
and Young’s gestures helped out the meaning of his 
words. Therefore Pablo grinned, and “ whooped up” 
El Sabio; and we all set off briskly down the steep 
decline. 

Presently we found our way much easier than we 
had been led to expect by its rough beginning. As 
we advanced along it there was ample evidence that 
the path had been graded and smoothed by the hand 
of man. In several places it was carried on a terrace 
supported by a well-laid retaining wall; a deep crevice 
was spanned by long slabs of stone, so placed as to 
form a bridge; and where it turned sharply around a 
high shoulder of rock, the face of the cliff had been 
quarried away. Yet that this all had been done in a 
very remote time was shown by the fragments of rock 
which had fallen into it here and there, and which were 
blackened by age. “The same fellow who set that 
statue in place probably was in charge here,” was Ray- 
burn’s comment, “and he was a first-rate engineer. I 
wish I knew how he managed to swing those stone 
slabs over that crevice. ‘There’s no room there to set 
up a derrick, and it would puzzle me to set blocks like 
that without one.” 

And Rayburn’s admiration for the professional skill 
of this engineer of a long past age was still further 
excited when the path came fairly into the valley, and 
thence was carried downward along the gentle slope 
towards the lake, by a perfectly even two-per-cent. 
grade, over a broad way paved smoothly with squared 
blocks of stone. And Fray Antonio and I were much 


134 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


interested in this work also, for we both pereeived the 
identity of its structure with the paved way that is 
found on the east coast of Yucatan, and that is contin- 
ued on the island of Cozumel. 

By this paved avenue we entered the city—for, as 
we presently found, it was entitled to this more digni- 
fied name. The first houses that we came to were but 
small buildings enclosing a single room—such as are 
found, inhabited by working-people, on the outskirts 
of any Mexican city at the present day. They were 
silent and deserted ; but they gave, at first sight, the 
impression of being but momentarily abandoned, for 
the belongings of their owners still remained in them 
as though the every-day affairs of life still went on 
within their walls. In the first that we entered we 
found an earthen pot still standing on a sort of fire- 
place, and beside the fireplace a little pile of charcoal. 
There was a fragment of bone in the pot, and beneath 
it were some scraps of charcoal which remained un- 
consumed. It was as though cooking had been going 
on here but an hour before. Rayburn even put his 
hand into the ashes to feel if they still were warm. 
But closer investigation gave us a juster notion of the 
long lapse of time that must have occurred since any 
fire had burned upon this hearth. In one corner of 
the room we found a pile of mats, but on touching 
these they crumbled into fragments in our hands; and 
the bone in the pot was so dry and so porous that it 
was light as cork. 

As in this first house that we examined, so was it in 
all of them. All, at the first glance, seemed to have 


THE SUBMERGED CITY. 135 


been but a moment before deserted; but all had signs 
about them which showed that they had been aban- 
doned for a very long time. In one we found a loom 
—in construction very like that which the Navajo Ind- 
lans use at the present day—on which hung, partly 
completed, a sheer filament that once had been some 
sort of heavy woollen cloth. In another, a cotton gar- 
ment was lying carelessly upon a shelf, as though but 
a moment before cast aside; yet, as I tried to pick it 
up, it crumbled between my fingers into a fine powder. 

Of humanity, the only sign that we found anywhere 
about this grim and desert place was the dried, shriv- 
elled remnant of a woman that we came upon in an 
upper room of one of the larger houses farther on. 
She was lying upon a bed of mats, partly turned upon 
her side, and one arm was stretched out towards an 
earthen cup that stood just beyond her reach upon the 
floor. There was strong pathos in the action of the 
figure, for it told of the keen thirst of fever—of weak- 
ness so extreme that the inch or two between the hand 
and the cup was a gulf impassable —of a moaning 
struggle after the water so longed for—and then, at 
last, of death in that utter and desolate loneliness. 
And what added to the ghastliness of it all was that a 
thin ray of sunlight, coming through a crevice in the 
wall, struck upon the woman’s teeth—whence the lips 
had dried away—and by its gleaming there made on 
her face a smile. 

As we came close to the lake, we perceived, as Ray- 
burn already had discerned by the aid of the glass, 
that houses, partially submerged, actually rose from 


136 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


the water, and that houses of which only the roofs 
were visible were farther on. That this whole valley 
was the crater of an extinct volcano was sufficiently 
evident ; and we could only surmise that in later times 
some fresh cataclysm of nature had poured suddenly 
into it a vast body of water, and so had submerged 
the city that had been builded here. Whatever had 
brought about the catastrophe, it evidently had come 
with a most appalling suddenness. Everywhere the 
condition of the houses showed how hastily they had 
been abandoned; and the wild hurry of flight was 
shown still more clearly in the case of the woman— 
whose surroundings gave evidence that she had been a 
person of consequence—deserted in her age or infirm- 
ity and left lonely to die. 

Young’s face wore a melancholy expression as we 
stood upon the shore of the lake, and looked out across 
it towards the faintly seen western shore. “If this 
is th’ place we’re huntin’ for,” he said, “I guess our 
treasure stock is pretty badly watered, unless some- 
body’s had th’ sense t’ keep th’ treasure dry over on 
th’ other side. We'd better move over there, I reckon, 
an’ take a look for it, especially as we’ve got t’ go 
that way anyhow in order t’ get out. There ought t’ 
be some sort of a path around th’ lake, between th’ 
edge of th’ water and th’ cliffs.” 

But when we came to examine into this matter we 
found that there was no path at all. On each side of 
the valley the walls of rock rose directly from the 
water, sharp and sheer. 

“Well,” said Rayburn, when we had finished our in- 


THE SUBMERGED CITY. 137 


spection, “we’ve got to get across somehow. I guess 
we'll have to sail in, the first thing to-morrow morn- 
ing, and build a raft. These pine-trees down here by 
the water will cut easy and float well, and there’s some 
comfort in that, anyway. But what I’m after right 
now is my supper.” 

Pablo already had started a fire, having first un- 
packed El Sabio, that he might refresh himself by 
rolling on the soft, green grass and by eating his fill 
of it, and Young presently had some ham fried and 
some coffee boiled. We had counted upon having 
fresh meat for supper that night, for there was every- 
thing in the look of the valley to promise that we 
would find game there; but, so far, not a four-footed 
thing nor a bird had we seen, nor even signs of fish in 
the lake. 

In the morning we got out the axes and went to work 
at the building of the raft; and, notwithstanding what 
Rayburn had said in regard to the ease of cutting 
them, I must confess that for my part I found the 
cutting of pine-trees very wearying and painful. My 
hands were blistered by it, and the muscles of my back 
were made extremely sore by it for several days. In- 
deed, the construction of a raft big enough to float us 
all, and our heavy packs, and El Sabio, was a serious 
undertaking. We spent two days and a half over it, 
and I never in my life was more thankful for anything 
than I was when at last that wretched raft was done. 
As Young observed, as he regarded our finished work 
critically, there was no style about it—for it was only 
a lot of rough logs, of which the upper and lower layers 


138 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSRE. 


ran fore and aft and the middle layer transversely, the 
whole bound together by our pack-ropes—but it was 
large enough for our purposes, and it was solid and 
strong. 

In the late afternoon we carried our belongings on 
board of it, and Pablo succeeded by dint of much en- 
treaty in inducing El Sabio to board it also, and we 
pushed off from shore.’ For driving the clumsy thing 
forward we had made four rough paddles, which well 
enough served our purpose, for there was no current 
whatever in the lake and the air was still. 

As we went onward we discovered how considerable 
the city was that here lay submerged. Through the 
perfectly clear water we could see to a great depth, 
and beneath us in every direction were paved streets, 
lined with houses well built of stone. Near the centre 
of the valley the size of the houses greatly increased, 
and the fashion of their building was more stately ; 
and fronting upon a great open square in the very cen- 
tre of the city was a building of such extraordinary 
size that we took it to be the palace of a king; but 
here the water was so deep that we could make out 
but faintly the looming far below us of its mighty 
walls. Never have I been more pained than I then 
was; for in that place I found myself close to making 
discoveries of surpassing archeological value, and yet 
I was as completely cut off from them as though they 
had no existence. 

Just beyond the palace, as we went onward, our raft 
almost touched the roof of a noble building that stood 
upon the top of a vast pyramidal mound, the base of 


THw SUBMERGED CITY. 139 


which we could see but dimly far down through the 
waters of the lake, This, evidently, had been the chief 
temple of the city ; and as we passed over it and came 
to its eastern side, we had ghastly and certain proof of 
the terrible suddenness with which the city had been 
overwhelmed. On the broad terrace before the temple 
was the sacrificial stone, and upon this dark mass we 
saw distinetly the gleaming of human bones; and as 
we peered down into the water we perceived that all 
the terrace was strewn thickly with human bones also, 
showing that when the rush of water came many thou- 
sands of human beings had here perished miserably. 
For a little while, no doubt, all the surface of the wa- 
ter round about where we were had been dotted thick- 
ly with the bodies of the drowned which had floated 
upward; and then, one by one, they had sunk again 
to the place where death first found them—where their 
flesh wasted away from them until only their gleaming 
bones remained. 

I pictured to myself the dreadful scene that once 
had passed, down there below us, where now was only 
the calm serenity of ancient death: the great crowd 
collected to witness the sacrifice, and then the sudden 
coming of the waters—possibly so quickly that the 
victim, held down by the neck-yoke upon the sacrifi- 
cial stone, was drowned ere there was time to slay him. 
This great mound would be the last of all to be cov- 
ered, and the wretched people gathered there must 
have seen their city disappear beneath the waters be- 
fore death came to them. No doubt they thought 
themselves safe in that high place, made sacred by the 


140 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


presence of their gods. And when the water did reach 
them, what a writhing and struggling there must have 
been for a little while; what a crushing of the weak 
by the strong in mad efforts to gain even a moment’s 
safety upon some higher standing-place! And then, 
at last, the water rose triumphant in its swelling maj- 
esty over all—and beneath its placid surface were hid 
the silenced terrors of all that commotion of mortal 
agony, whereof the outcome was the peaceful and eter- 
nal calm of death. 


XII. 


IN THE VALLEY OF DEATH. 


As the raft approached the western shore of the 
lake we perceived beneath us no longer houses, but 
large walled enclosures which plainly had been gar- 
dens of pleasure—for gaunt trees, symmetrically plant- 
ed in groves and beside stone- paved path-ways, yet 
stood in them; and seats of carved stone were placed 
in what once had been shaded nooks; and in many of 
the gardens were carved stone fountains of elegant 
design. Between the city and what once had been 
its charming suburb extended a broad paved way, like 
that which we had found upon the eastern shore; and 
this paved way was continued on the dry ground 
above the present level of the lake towards the cliffs 
westward. On the high western shore were a few 
houses, large and handsome, and having walled gar. 


IN THE VALLEY OF DEATH. 141 


dens around them, which evidently had belonged to 
persons of great wealth and consequence. 

In these we found shadowy remnants of a past mag- 
nificence. On many of the walls were hangings, once 
rich and heavy, that now were mere films of ghostly 
stuff held together by the many gold threads which 
had been woven into their fabric. Pottery, wrought 
into beautiful shapes, yet ornamented with designs 
that told of a but half-redeemed barbarism, was scat- 
tered about everywhere, and scarcely a piece was bro- 
ken. Some very handsome weapons we found also— 
swords and spears and knives—of the same curious 
metal as the sword which Pablo so opportunely had 
laid hands upon in the cafion, but far more finely fin- 
ished and more delicate in design. And of this same 
metal was made a great throne, as it seemed to us to 
be, that was in the largest room of the finest of all the 
houses; a house that we believed was once the pleas- 
ure palace of the king. The audience-chamber in 
which this throne stood was of finely wrought stone- 
work, whereof the whole surface was covered with 
low-reliefs of men and animals—scenes of battle, of 
ewouncil, and of the chase—surrounded by curious 
tracery of such orderly design that Fray Antonio 
agreed with me in the belief that it was some sort of 
hieroglyphic writing. But this matter is treated of 
so fully in my Pre-Columbian Conditions on the Con- 
tinent of North America that I need not enter upon 
discussion of it here. 

But in none of these houses, much to the disappoint- 
ment of Rayburn and Young, did we find any scrap 


142 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSBE. 


ef the treasure for which they so earnestly longed. 
And, truly, if treasure remained in this wrecked city, 
it was less likely to be in these outlying country 
houses than in some strong building in the city’s heart ; 
and so beyond their reach in the depths of the lake. 
If this were indeed the walled city for which we were 
searching—as well it might be, for never was a city 
surrounded by grander walls than the mighty cliffs 
wherewith the valley was encompassed—our search 
was like to be a vain one so far as mere treasure was 
concerned; though I, for my part, felt myself well re- 
paid for all that I had thus far suffered by the discov- 
ery of so much that was of archeological value. In 
this purer pleasure Fray Antonio shared; yet was he 
also dissatisfied—for he had come with us that he 
might preach Christianity to living souls: and here 
were only the bones of countless dead. 

The paved way still led westward, and we followed 
it—for to the westward must be the valley’s outlet. 
As it rose to a higher level the way widened; and on 
each side of it was a stone statue of the god Chae- 
Mool. As we came to these statues Young proceeded, 
in a most business-like way, and with no apparent ap- 
preciation of the queer figure that he cut, to sit down 
in turn on each of their heads. And he was might- 
ily disappointed when he found that neither of them 
stirred. “'They’re not th’ tippin’ kind,” he said, rue- 
fully, as he got down from the head of the second one 
and looked at it with an expression of reproach. 

But his countenance brightened, when we had gone 
on a little farther, as he caught sight of another and 


IN THE VALLEY OF DEATH. 143 


much larger statue of the god that was set in a great 
niche cut in the cliff at the end of the paved way. To 
prepare here the god’s abiding-place very arduous la- 
bor had been undertaken. For a space fully one hun- 
dred feet high and as many broad the whole face of 
the cliff had been quarried into; making a deep recess 
that was rounded above, and that from beneath was 
approached by a long flight of steps cut from the solid 
rock. In the centre of the recess, upon the terraced 
space above the stairs, was a huge squared mass of 
stone, on which the great stone figure of Chac-Mool 
rested. The opening faced directly eastward, and as 
we approached it the stone figure was seen but indis- 
tinctly in the duskiness of the recess, over which, and 
far beyond which into the valley, fell the shadow of 
the mighty cliff. From in front of this great altar all 
the valley was open to us; and hence, before the lake 
swallowed it, every part of the city must have been 
clearly visible in ancient times. As we mounted the 
steps and approached the idol I observed that Pab- 
lo hung back a little; as though in the depths of his 
nature some chord had been touched, some ancient in- 
stinct in his blood aroused, that filled his soul with 
awe. 

Certainly there was no suggestion of awe in Young’s 
demeanor towards the statue. With a monkey-like 
quickness, that I would not have given his stout legs 
and heavy body credit for, he climbed upon the altar 
and plumped himself down on the head of the figure 
almost in a moment. But again he was disappointed, 
for the idol did not stir. As we examined it closely 


144 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


we perceived that its fixedness was not unreasonable ; 
for the figure, and the altar on which it rested, were 
one solid mass of rock that itself was a part of the 
cliff—left standing here when the niche around it was 
hollowed out. A very prodigious piece of stone-cut- 
ting all this was, and as I contemplated it I was filled 
with admiration of the skill of them who had achieved 
it. But Young came down from the idol moodily; and 
he said that the way these people had of playmg 
tricks on travellers, by making Mullinses that didn’t 
tip when they ought to tip, was quite of a piece with 
their putting their treasure where it couldn’t be got at 
without a diving-bell. 

Behind the altar the niche was cut into the cliff 80 
far that the depths of it in the waning daylight were 
dusky with heavy shadows; indeed, so dense were 
these that Young came near to breaking his bones by 
falling into a little hole in the floor, that was the less 
easily seen because it was hidden behind a jutting 
mass of rock. But he caught the rock in time to save 
himself from falling, and eagerly struck a wax-match 
that be might see if here were a passage-way for us. 
Descending into the rock was a stair-way, the steps 
whereof were smoothed as though many feet had trod- 
den them; and down these steps he promptly went, 
holding the lighted match before him—these Mexican 
wax-matches are as good as tapers—and having with 
him the full box of matches should further light be 
required. A minute later we heard his voice calling 
to us, but where it came from we could not tell—for 
he had descended into the rock below us, and the 


IN THE VALLEY OF DEATH. 145 


sound that we heard seemed to come from the air 
above. While we listened we saw the gleam of the 
light in the darkness below, and then he came up the 
stair laughing. 

“Well, that’s just th’ boss trick,” he said. “I guess 
th’ old priests who used t’ run this place would be 
everlastin’ly down on me if they knew that I’d tum- 
bled to it. There’s a hole right up into th’ idol aw’ 
room inside of him for half a dozen men, an’ there’s 
a crack in his head that you can see out through while 
you're lettin’ off prophecies an’ that sort o’ thing. 
Why, if you had a crowd t’ work with who really be- 
lieved in Jack Mullins, you could set ’em up for almost 
anything with a rig like that!” 

But this curious discovery, in which Fray Antonio 
and I were deeply interested, did not forward our im- 
mediate purpose, which was to find a way out of the 
valley. We still cherished a faint hope, indeed, that 
we might find the King’s symbol with the arrow point- 
ing the way onward, and so be assured that the city 
buried in the depths of the lake was not the city of 
which we were in search. But in any event the need 
for getting out of the valley pressed upon us; and 
that we might accomplish our deliverance from this 
shut-in place, we examined closely the whole circuit 
of the cliffs at the western end. Not an inch of this 
great expanse of rock, for as far up the wall as our 
eyes could see clearly, escaped our attentive observa- 
tion; yet nowhere was there, even by bold climbing, a 
place where the cliff might be scaled, still less an open 
path. And so, having walked slowly along the bottom 

10 


146 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


of the cliffs to the edge of the lake on the north, and 
there turned upon our steps and come slowly back 
again to where we started from, and having made a 
like double journey of inspection to and from the edge 
of the lake to the south, we came at last to our first 
point of departure, and rested before the statue of 
Chac-Mool, disconsolate. 

One discovery we had made in the course of our ex- 
plorations which enabled us to understand how the 
fate that had overtaken the drowned city had fallen 
upon it. Close by the northern border of the valley 
we saw, high up above us, a vast rift more than a thou- 
sand feet wide in the face of the cliff; and below this 
the ground was torn into a deep wild channel, and 
everywhere huge fragments of rock were scattered 
over the ground. Here it was, then, that the water 
had poured in—bursting forth from a lake above—by 
which the city at one stroke had been overwhelmed. 
Some little notice, by the mighty roaring that must 
have accompanied so great a crash of rocks and so vast 
a rush of water, the dwellers in the city must have 
had; and the gleam of the pouring waters would have 
shown them the nature of the ruin that was upon 
them. ‘There would have been time, before the water 
was waist-deep in the city streets, for them to make 
their way to the high mound on which their temple 
stood; and in the appalling horror of it all they might 
have clamored to their priests that a victim should be 
sacrificed to stay this terrible outburst of anger on 
the part of their gods. But it was more than likely 
that before the sacrifice could be completed they all— 


IN THE VALLEY OF DEA1H. 147 


people, priests, and he who was to be sacrificed—per- 
ished together beneath the flood. 

“Why,” said Young, “ th’ Mill River disaster wasn’t 
anything to it, an’ that was pretty bad. I was run- 
nin’ th’ way-freight on th’ Old Colony road when 
that happened, an’ I took a day off an’ went up an’ 
had a look at it. But this just lays that little horror 
out cold. It’s as big as. lettin’ loose on Boston the 
whole of Massachusetts Bay.” 

That we should be prisoners in a place where death 
had wrought so swiftly such tremendous havoc was 
quite enough to fill our souls with a brooding melan- 
choly. But in addition to the sombre thoughts which 
thus were forced upon us, bred of sorrow for the thou- 
sands who had here untimely perished, the gloomy 
dread of a more practical sort assailed us that we also 
in a little while would join the silent company of the 
thousands who had died here in a long past time. 
And the death that seemed to be in store for us was 
less merciful than that which had come to them. 
Theirs had been a short struggle, and then a gentle 
ending as the waters closed over them. But our end- 
ing was like to be a lingering one and miserable—by 
starvation. 

With the loss of our mules and horses we had been 
compelled to leave behind us the greater portion of our 
stores; and for our protection against savages, and in 
the belief that in the mountains we should meet with 
an abundance of game, we had left almost all of our 
provisions, and made our lading mainly of ammunition 
and arms. But in this valley, so smiling and so bean- 


148 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


tiful, there was no live thing except ourselves. Not 
a beast, not a bird had we seen since we entered it; 
and in the lake, as we found presently, there were no 
fish; the only sign that animal life ever had existed 
here was that dried and withered remnant of a woman 
that we had found in the deserted house, and the bones 
which we had seen gleaming below us in the lake. 
This was, in truth, as we came thus to call it, the Val- 
ley of Death. 

While we worked at building the raft we had not 
thought to be sparing in our eating—for building that 
raft was hungry work—and now that consideration 
of the matter was forced upon us, we found that we 
had with us food barely sufficient for three days. We 
could, of course, eat El Sabio—though such was our 
feeling towards that excellent animal that eating him 
would be almost like eating one of ourselves; and 
Pablo, we knew, would regard eating this dear friend 
of his as neither more nor less than sheer cannibalism. 
And even if we did eat El Sabio, the meat of his little 
body would but prolong our lives for a week, or pos- 
sibly for two weeks more. And what then? 

Had there been room in our souls for yet more sor- 
row, we could have had it in the thought that in aif 
that we had set out to do we had completely failed. 
If this Valley of Death were indeed the place that we 
had been seeking, little good came to us from find- 
ing it. Of the souls which Fray Antonio had come 
forth to save, here there were none. Of archeological 
discovery, truly, I had something to make me glad; 
yet little compared to what was hidden beneath the 


IN THE VALLEY OF DEATH. 149 


waters; and even this little, since knowledge of what 
I had found soon must die with me, was of no avail. 
As for Rayburn and Young, the treasure which they 
sought might or might not be near at hand; but they 
certainly could no more come at it than, were it heaped 
up before them, they could carry it away. And most 
of all was my heart troubled by the fate that was like 
to overtake Pablo because of his love for me. Bitter- 
ly I blamed myself for permitting the boy to come 
with me; for I should have foreseen that a hundred 
chances might intervene to render impossible my in- 
tention to give him his free choice to go or to stay 
when the decisive turning-point in our adventure came. 
In point of fact, one of these chances had intervened; 
and the attack upon us that the Indians had made, 
and the closing of the passage in the rock behind us 
that rendered return impossible, had forced him to re- 
main with us without voice of his own in the matter; 
and now would bring him, as it would bring the rest 
of us, to the most horrible death of which a man can 
die. 

Night was falling as we ended our search along the 
cliffs for a way of escape, and found none, and so came 
again in front of the great idol—where our packs had 
been left heaped up, and where the Wise One, happily 
unmindful of the fate that might soon be in store for 
him, was energetically cropping the rich grass. We 
built a fire, for the air in that deep valley, mingling 
with the mists rising from the lake, was damp and 
chill; and beside the fire we made our evening meal. 
There was no good in talking about what was so ap- 


150 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


parent to all of us; but Young, who was our cook, 
showed his appreciation of the situation practically by 
serving only half rations and by making our coffee 
very thin and poor. 

Silently we ate our short allowance of food; and 
thereafter we smoked our pipes with but little talk for 
seasoning, and that little of a melancholy sort. Of our 
own plight we did not speak at all, but in what we 
said there was constantly a reflection of the bitter 
sorrow with which all our hearts were charged. I 
remember that Young, who truly was as merry a man 
naturally as ever I knew, told us that night only of 
dreadful railroad accidents—of wrecks in which men 
lay crushed among the heaped-up cars, shrieking with 
the agony of their hurts; and then shrieking with 
dread, and with yet greater pain as the fire that seized 
upon the ruin around them came nearer and nearer 
until they fairly were roasted alive. And Rayburn 
told of a prospecting party besieged by Indians upon 
a mountain peak in Colorado; how, one by one, they 
slowly died in a raving horror of thirst until one man 
alone was left; and how this one man prolonged his 
life until rescue came by drinking the blood of his own 
body, and yet died in raging madness almost at the 
moment that he was saved. 

For myself, I had nothing to add to these horrors; 
yet such was my frame of mind that I found a certain 
bitter gladness in listening to the telling of them, and 
in tracing between them and our own case the ghastly 
parallel. In our talk, which went on in English, Fray 
Antonio took no part; but he could follow well enough 


IN THE VALLEY OF DEATH. 151 


the meaning of it in our tones. On his face was an 
expression of tender melancholy that seemed to me to 
_ tell of sorrow for us rather than of dread of what might 
be in store for himself; and that this truly was his 
mood was shown when the others paused, sated and 
appalled by the horrors which they had conjured up, 
and he spoke at last. 

It was not a sermon that Fray Antonio gave us; but 
out of the abundant store of faith by which he himself 
was sustained he strove to comfort us with thoughts 
of better things than life can give. And with the 
promise of hope that he held out to us with the sol- 
emn authority that was vested in him by reason of the 
service to which he was vowed, he mingled a certain 
yearning for us, very moving, that came of the love 
and the tender gentleness that were in his own hearts 
And yet, though he knew that, excepting Pablo, we all 
were heretics according to his own creed, there was 
no word of doctrine in all of his discourse. Rather 
was what he said a simple setting forth of that primi- 
tive Christianity which has its beginning and its end- 
ing in a simple faith in an all-pervading, all-protecting 
love. And of this love, as it seemed to me, he himself 
was the human embodiment. Looking in his gentle 
face, which yet had such high courage, such noble res- 
olution in it, I felt that in him the spirit of the saints 
and martyrs of long past ages lived again. 

With our souls soothed and strengthened by what 
Fray Antonio had spoken to us, we lay down at last to 
sleep; yet was it impossible for us to drive out from 
our hearts that natural sadness which men must feel 


152 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


who know that they have failed in a strong effort to 
accomplish a project very dear to them, and who know 
also that they are standing upon the very threshold of 
a most tormenting death. 


XITI. 


UP THE CHAC-MOOL STAIR. 


We awoke the next morning at the very moment 
that the sun rose above the mountain peaks to the 
eastward; and our waking was due in part to the sun- 
shine striking upon our faces, but more to the prodig- 
ious braying, that echoed thunderously from the cliffs 
around us, with which El Sabio welcomed the advent 
of the god of day. 

“Tt is a good sign, sefior,” said Pablo, ‘when El 
Sabio brays thus nobly at sunrise. He does not do it 
often, but when he does I know beyond a doubt that I 
am. to have a lucky day.” 

“ An’ I must say,” Young struck in, “that for a 
man who expects t’ have t’ eat his boots in th’ course 
of a day or two I’m feelin’ this mornin’ most uncom- 
monly chipper myself. For one thing, I mean t’ have 
another look around that idol. I’m not at all sure that 
he’s not th’ tippin’-up kind. Maybe we didn’t put 
enough weight on him yesterday ; or he may do his 
tippin’ up from th’ other end. Anyhow, I’m goin’ 
t’? have another whack at him as soon as I’ve eat my 
breakfast; an’ that’s a performance that won’t take 


UP THE CHAC-MOOL STAIR. 153 


long t’? get through with, considerin’ how thunderin’ 
little there is t’ eat.” 

Truly, the eating of our breakfast did not consume 
much time; and, so short did Young make our rations, 
I am not sure that we were not hungrier at the end of 
it than we were at its beginning. When we finished, 
the sun was still low in the east; and the bright rays 
struck full upon the statue of Chac-Mool, on the great 
stone altar, and into the depths of the niche that had 
been hollowed behind it in the face of the cliff. We 
observed that the idol was so placed that the very first 
rays of the sun, coming through a cleft between two 
great peaks to the eastward, shone brightly upon it, 
while yet all the rest of the valley save the cliff above 
the niche remained in shade. 

With the strong sunlight deeply penetrating it, the 
recess behind the altar no longer was filled with the 
black shadows that had obscured it on the previous 
afternoon; and even the hole into which Young so 
nearly had fallen was plainly visible. Taking advan- 
tage of the better light, the lost-freight agent—who 
certainly had found a fitting berth in that department 
of railway service, for such a man for hunting for 
things, and for finding them, I never came across— 
made a more careful examination of the deeper portion 
of the recess, and presently he gave a shout that told 
of a discovery. 

As we gathered around him he pointed in great ex- 
citement to a row of metal pegs, which were fixed in 
the rock one above the other, diagonally; and then to 
the point in the roof of the recess towards which these 


154 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


pegs tended. Even with the strong light that now aid- 
ed us it was some time before I could make out among 
the black shadows of the roof a small opening; but the 
longer that I looked at it the more distinct it grew. 

“We've struck th’ trail once more,’ Young cried. 
“We've struck it sure. It don’t look promisin’, but 
here it is—for if this ain’t th’ King’s symbol carved 
right by th’ first of these pegs, then you’re all at liber- 
ty t’? kick me right smack over th’ top of that idol for 
ad n fool! Hurrah!” 

Pablo could not understand what Young was say- 
ing, but it was easy to perceive from his gestures the 
nature of the happy discovery that he had made. In 
a tone in which deference and triumph were curiously 
blended, Pablo said to me: “ Did I not tell you, sefior, 
that a good thing always happens when El Sabio brays 
at the rising sun ?” 

Before Pablo had ended this short but exultant 
deliverance, Young was half-way up to the roof of 
the cave, treading gingerly upon the metal bolts and 
testing each one before he trusted his weight to it. 
In a couple of minutes he reached the roof and dis- 
appeared through the hole; and almost instantly he 
called down to us: “ We're solid—here’s a regular 
staircase. Come along!” 

We followed him promptly enough; while our 
hearts thrilled, and all our bodies trembled, with the 
gladness that possessed us as we found this way open- 
ing to us from the valley wherein we had thought 
that surely we must die. In a little chamber, cut in 
the rock above the opening into which the ladder of 


UP THE CHAC-MOOL STAIR. 155 


bolts led us, Young was waiting for us; and from this 
chamber a spiral stair-way ascended that was dimly 
lighted by crevices cut from it out to the face of the 
cliff. With Young leading us, up this we went; at 
first rapidly, but, later, slowly and wearily, for it 
seemed as though the stair would never end. Yet 
though our bodies were heavy our spirits were very 
light ; for we knew by the wearisome length of it tnat 
the stair must lead to the very top of the towering 
cliffs by which we had believed ourselves to be irrev- 
ocably shut in. And at last there was a gleaming of 
light above us; and this grew stronger and stronger 
until we eame out with a shout of joy into the glad 
sunlight—and saw far below us the valley that we 
once more thought beautiful, now that it no longer 
held us fast. 

In the depth below us we could discern El Sabio, 
looking no bigger then a rabbit; and he must have 
caught the sound of our shouting with those long ears 
of his, for there came up to us faintly from him an an- 
swering bray. 

“It’s pretty hard lines on that jackass,” said Young, 
“leaving him behind down there. But he might be 
left in a worse place, after all.” 

I could perceive that Pablo was stirred by uneasy 
thoughts of the separation that now so clearly must 
take place between him and his dear friend; and he 
looked wistfully along the path across the mountain to 
the westward—cut and smoothed so that it was an 
easy path to go on—and evidently thought how simple 
a matter it would be for El Sabio to travel on with 


156 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


us if only once he were up the stair. But he did not 
speak, and I hoped that he was nerving himself to bear 
manfully this sore trial. For the rest of us, we had 
but one thought: to get our packs up the stair-way 
as quickly as possible—and at its quickest this work 
would be slowly and painfully done—and then once 
more go forward. Just as we turned to descend again 
an eagle came sailing slowly towards us — evidently 
without fear of us—and Rayburn was so fortunate as 
to bring him down with a pistol-shot. We tossed him 
over the edge of the cliff; and a famous breakfast we 
made on him when we returned into the valley again. 
T can’t say that I would have much stomach for so 
dirty a bird now, but I certainly did think that eagle 
most delicious eating then. 

The hearty meal that we made on him strengthened 
us mightily, and we went to work with a will at get- 
ting our traps up the stair. With our pack-ropes we 
hauled the various articles first into the little room 
at the stair-foot, and then toilsomely carried them to 
the heights above. Saving only that this work did 
not blister my hands, it was worse than the building of 
the raft had been; and all of us, using in climbing and 
in descending the stair certain muscles which normal] 
are not brought often into play, found our legs so stiff 
and sore for the next day or two that walking gave ns 
very lively pain. 

It was as this heavy work went slowly forward that 
Pablo said to me, speaking in an insinuating and dep- 
recating tone: “Up a stair such as this is, sefior, the 
Wise One would bound like a deer.” 


UP THE CHAC-MOOL STAIR. 15% 


I did not call in question Pablo’s simile, for I knew 
that the boy’s heart must be very sad. Laying my 
hand kindly upon his shoulder, I answered in a way to 
show that I was truly sorry for him: “The Wise One 
will lead a happy life, Pablo, in this beautiful valley— 
where nothing can do him harm, and where he will 
have an abundance of water and of rich fresh grass. 
Up the stair no doubt he could climb, for he knows 
wonderfully well how to use those dainty little feet of 
his ; but even the Wise One could not climb up the 
ladder of metal bolts. Therefore must thou strengthen 
thy heart against the bitterness of this parting from 
him; for even if thou wouldst stay behind with him it 
is not possible—for thou canst not live, like the Wise 
One, on water and grass.” 

‘But he is so little and so light an ass, sefior,”’ Pablo 
urged, “that surely, all of us pulling together, we could 
pull him up by the ropes, even as the other things have 
been pulled up; surely, surely, sefior, that would be an 
easy thing for four men to do—and I also can pull at 
the ropes, sefior, almost as well as any man.” 

It did not seem to me that even all of us pulling to- 
gether could sway El Sabio up a hundred feet through 
the air; but Pablo was so pitiful in his entreaties, and 
seemed so resolutely bent upon remaining behind in 
the valley and dying there with his dear friend rather 
than go on without him, that I opened the matter to 
Rayburn and joined my plea to Pablo’s that this curi- 
ous effort should be made. And in addition to the 
sentimental reason for taking the ass with us, I point- 
ed out to Rayburn—as, indeed, he understood without 


158 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


my telling him—how practically valuable El Sabio 
was to us in helping us to bear our heavy loads. Ray- 
burn thought with me that the dead lift of so consid- 
erable a weight to such a height, without tackle of 
any sort to help us, was impossible. But Young, who 
had an inventive strain in his composition, was of the 
opinion that he could set up such rough tackle as 
would answer our purpose; upon understanding which, 
Pablo at once embraced El Sabio and danced for joy. 

Young was, I think, the handiest man I ever knew. 
He had a natural genius for mechanics; and in the 
many years of his railroad life he had gained a knowl. 
edge of all manner of expedients by which the work 
of complicated machinery could be accomplished by 
very simple means. ‘When you havea freight smash. 
up right in the middle of the section,” he said, “ with 
nobody to help you inside of forty miles, and the ex- 
press due to come bouncing down on you inside of 
two hours, you’ve just got to get things out of the 
way whether you’ve got anything to do it with or not. 
tf I had the equipment of a first-class freight-cab here 
I'd yank that burro up inside of twenty minutes; and 
if I don’t do it, anyway, inside of two hours [ll prom- 
ise to eat him.” 

I did not translate the whole of this speech to Pab- 
lo, for talk even in fun about eating El Sabio was 
rather a delicate matter, considering how close a shave 
that worthy animal had had to being eaten in dead 
earnest; but I did tell him that the Sefior Young felt 
sure that he could swing El Sabio up through the air 
to where the stair began. And with Pablo—who alse 


UP THE CHAC-MOOL STAIR. 159 


could use his hands well—most willingly helping, 
Young contrived in a surprisingly short time to make 
a rough windlass, that was effective enough for the 
work to be done with it, and to pull it up bit by bit 
into the chamber in the rock and there fit it together 
over the hole. El Sabio, being brought into the recess 
behind the idol, regarded us all with a doubting ex- 
pression that even Pablo’s repeated assurances that we 
meant well by him could not change into a look of 
trustfulness. Pablo declared, however, that in his 
heart of hearts the Wise One knew that we all were 
his friends, and that even though we should hurt him 
a little he would understand that it was for his good. 
And the conduct of the ass during the exceedingly 
bad half-hour that he then went through seemed fully 
to bear out Pablo’s words. Around his small body, 
with stays running forward around his neck and aft to 
his tail, we rigged looped ropes—which ropes were 
gathered together above his back and there made fast 
to the line that was pendent from the windlass above. 
From time to time, as this operation was going for- 
ward, Hl Sabio turned his head upon one shoulder or 
the other and gazed with a wistful expression at what 
we were doing to him; and the slow shake that he 
gave his head, whereby his great ears were set to wag- 
ging mournfully, as he finished each of these inspec- 
tions, betrayed the grave wonder that was within him as 
to what it all could mean, together with a not unnatu- 
ral apprehension of what might be its ultimate outcome. 

By a good chance, the effect upon the Wise One of 
finding the solid earth drop suddenly from beneath his 


160 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


feet—when at last all was in readiness, and Young and 
Rayburn began to hoist away at the windlass—was to 
render him quite rigid with terror; and there was a 
most agonized look upon his face as he went sailing up 
through the air. Pablo, standing below with me, that 
we might steady the ass with a guy-rope during his 
ascent, addressed to him all manner of tender and com- 
forting words; but for once the Wise One seemed to 
be insensible to his master’s voice. Neither with his 
eyes nor his ears did he respond; and he well enough 
might have been taken for a dead ass going heaven- 
ward, but for the sharp twitchings of his tail. And 
when at last he was safely within the upper chamber, 
he fairly fell down upon the rocky floor of it in sheer 
exhaustion begot of fright. It was not until we had 
passed up a bucket of water to him, whereof he drank 
the very last drop, and had been soothed by Pablo’s 
fondling of him and by Pablo’s gentle words, that his 
broken spirit revived. And so limp and weak was he 
that it was a long while before we could in conscience 
urge him to ascend the stair. When at last he set 
himself to this undertaking, he was far from accom- 
plishing it in the bounding and deer-like manner that 
Pablo had promised for him; but he certainly did at 
last get to the top—which was all that was required 
of him—and there drank gratefully the bucketful of 
water that Pablo had carried up that great height for 
his comforting when his toilsome climbing should end. 
And Pablo went down into the valley once more that 
night in order to bring back to his friend a hearty sup- 
per of rich grass. 


THE HANGING CHAIN. 161 


By the time that all this hard work was accom- 
plished the day was nearly at an end; and even had 
there been light for us to see our way by we were too 
tired to go on—for every bone and muscle in our 
bodies was weary and sore. Therefore we made our 
camp for the night on the flat expanse of rock where 
the stair ended; and we were thankful that enough of 
the eagle remained to us for our supper—and, indeed, 
we made our breakfast on him also, for he was a pro- 
digiously large bird. Very different were our feelings 
as we wrapped ourselves in our blankets and settled 
ourselves to sleep on that open mountain-top— with 
the path clear before us, and with the cheering hope 
in our hearts that among the mountains we should find 
a plentv of wild creatures suitable for food—from the 
dull despairing languor that had possessed us as we 
sank to sleep the night before. And with our joy was 
also a reverent thankfulness—that was more strongly 
stimulated by certain words which Fray Antonio spoke 
ere we lay down to rest—that our deliverance was ac- 
complished from that death-stricken valley wherein we 
ourselves so surely had expected that we must die. 


XIV. 
THE HANGING CHAIN. 


By the winding way which we followed along the 
mountain-top (and that this was the way we wished to 
follow the King’s symbol and the pointing arrow plainly 

11 


162 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


showed), we came presently close beside the rift in 
the cliffs through which the waters of the upper lake 
had been discharged upon the city in the valley below 
and so had buried it. And here we made a very sur- 
prising discovery—which was no less than that the 
great rift in the rocks through which the water had 
been let loose was not, as we had supposed, the result 
of some fierce convulsion of nature, but very plainly 
was the fiercer work of man. Along the face of the 
opening whence the water had poured forth the rock 
was grooved, showing that drill-holes had been made, 
close together, from the edge of the cliff backward to 
the lake that once had filled all the valley now lying 
bare and empty before us; and with the field-glass we 
could see that there was a like channelling of the rock 
upon the farther side of the break. And all doubt in 
our minds in regard to this matter was removed by 
our finding a vastly long drill—made of the bright, 
hard metal that we now were familiar with, yet could 
not at all understand its composition—lying close be- 
side the chasm upon the bare rock. 

“There has been the devil’s own work here!” said 
Rayburn, as he fully took in this extraordinary situ- 
ation. ‘“‘Whoever did this must have spent months 
over it, perhaps years, working with such tools as 
these. They evidently went at it systematically, with 
the deliberate intention of drowning the whole crowd 
down below. From an engineering stand-point I must 
say that it’s a good piece of work. See how cleverly 
they’ve picked out this particular spot, where the wall 
of rock went down almost perpendicularly into the 


THE HANGING CHAIN. 163 


ir xe, and so got the full value of the thrust of the wa- 
ter when their cuts were finished. If I’m not mistaken, 
there was a third line of drill-holes sunk in the middle 
of the mass that they meant to cut loose. That’s the 
way I should have done it: then there would have 
been a little giving in the centre that would have 
helped to loosen the sides. But what a lot of incar- 
nate devils they must have been to go at such a job!’ 

Truly, there was something chilling to the blood in 
the thought of the slow labor of them who had toiled 
here, day after day and month after month, until their 
ghastly purpose was accomplished, and they had slain 
a whole city without striking a single honest blow. 
Such vengeance upon an enemy as here was taken 
never had its equal for cold, malignant cruelty since 
the world began. Down in the valley below we had 
seen gleaming beneath the calm surface of the lake 
the bones of the thousands who had perished when 
this diabolical work was completed, and the waters 
bounded forth, shining and sparkling in the sunlight, 
on their mission of death. And whoever let them 
loose must have stood just where we now were stand- 
ing; and at sight of what came of their long labor 
there must have been such joy as no hell could ade- 
quately punish in their black hearts. 

Our bodies shuddered as we turned and left the 
scene of this tremendous tragedy; that was the more 
appalling to us because of the profound mystery in | 
which was buried everything related to it save the 
fact that it had been. 

For a long distance our way went onward beside 


164 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


the bare, deep valley that had been the basin of the 
lake, and so the thought of the horror which had been 
wrought so devilishly with its innocent waters lingered 
gloomily in our minds. Involuntarily we associated 
the unknown people of a long past time who had per- 
petrated this hideous wholesale murder with the peo- 
ple for whom we now were searching, and an uncertain 
dread filled our souls as to what might be our own fate 
should we end by finding what we sought. From the 
tender mercies of a race in which stealthy craft and 
cold, malignant cruelty evidently were such conspicu- 
ous characteristics, little was to be expected. There- 
fore, it was in a sombre mood, and with but little talk 
among us, that we went forward upon our way. 

The path that we followed showed the same care in 
the making of it that we had found in the path leading 
down from the cafion into the valley where the drown- 
ed city was. Throughout the length of it, by carrying 
it skilfully along the windings of the mountain-sides, 
an equable, easy grade was maintained; where it led 
across open spaces the loose stones had been cleared 
away and stood heaped along each side of it; where it 
skirted precipices the solid rock had been cut out in 
order to give a wider and a surer foothold; and here 
and there in its course crevices which traversed it were 
bridged with great slabs of stone. Rayburn was lost 
in admiration of the engineering skill that was shown 
in its construction, and declared that a very little extra 
work put on it would fit it for the laying of a line of 
rails. 

The valley on our right, in which the lake had been, 


THE HANGING CHAIN, 165 


narrowed as we advanced; and as the path that we 
followed had a steadily rising grade (according to 
Rayburn’s estimate, of a trifle more than three per 
cent.), the bottom of it fell away rapidly. As we 
reached what had been, as we found, the foot of the 
lake, we discovered fresh evidence of the enormous 
amount of labor that had been expended in order to 
make its waters an effective engine of destruction. 
Far in the depths beneath us, extending across the 
whole width of the valley—but here the valley had 
so narrowed that it was less a valley than a cafion— 
we saw a high and vastly broad stone wall. It was 
then that we perceived fully the whole of the devil- 
ish design, and realized the years that must have been 
given to its execution. By the building of the wall 
the level of the lake had been raised fully three hun- 
dred feet, and so a head of water had been obtained 
strong enough to thrust out the mass of rock that had 
been loosened by drilling through its centre and at its 
sides. It would have been possible, also, for the rock 
that was to be broken away to be greatly thinned by 
quarrying its open face while the water was rising 
slowly after the great dam was built. Clearly, the 
whole work had been planned with a calm, diabolical 
ingenuity that assured with absolute certainty the ac- 
complishment of the horrible purpose that those who 
labored at it had in view. It seemed impossible, 
but for the proof that we here had of it, that human 
hearts could have in them enough of purely devilish 
cruelty to spend years in thus working out to perfec- 
tion so hideous a vengeance; and to me it seemed all 


166 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


the more dreadful because of the time that had pass- 
ed since this most evil deed was done. Centuries had 
vanished, and the slayers—living out the few years 
of their lifetime—nhad perished from off the earth as 
utterly as had the slain; yet here the whole proof of 
the great crime that had been wrought lived on in en- 
during stone that was like to last until the very end of 
the world should come. Thus had these sinners left 
behind them, raised by their own hands, a monument 
telling of their sin; which sin had not even the redeem- 
ing quality of passionateness, but was slow and subtle 
and cruelly cold. 

We were glad to turn from sight of this place and 
press onward into the cafion, for such the valley now 
had become; and we found in the dark shadows 
which enveloped us in this deep cleft between the 
mountains a sombreness in keeping with the feelings 
in our hearts. So high above us towered the cliffs 
that at their top they seemed almost to meet, showing 
between them only a narrow ribbon of bright blue 
sky, and below us the chasm went down sheer for a 
thousand feet; a gloomy depth that our eyes could 
not have penetrated had there not gleamed at the bot- 
tom of it the foam and sparkle of a little stream. Here 
the path was hewn almost continuously out of the solid 
rock; and we could see that a like path was cut in the 
rock on the other side. That so prodigious a piece of 
work should be thus duplicated seemed to us a very 
astonishing waste of energy; for even Young did not 
have much faith in his own suggestion that two pre- 
historic railway companies had secured rights of way 


THE HANGING CHAIN. 167 


along the opposite sides of the cafion, and had begun 
the building there of rival lines. 

But the matter was explained, presently, by our find- 
ing that this other path was but a doubling of the path 
that we were on. As we rounded a turn in the cafion 
we came suddenly to a broad natural ledge in the rock, 
over which hung a great projection of the cliff so that 
the sky above was hid from us. Here our path went 
off into the air, and began again on the other side 
of the vastly deep chasm, a good sixty feet away. 
‘“‘Rather long for a jump,” was Rayburn’s curt com- 
ment as we puiled up on the edge of the precipice and 
looked at each other blankly. Yet it was evident that 
those who had made with such great expense of toil 
and time these path-ways on the opposite sides of the 
cafion had crossed in some way from the one to the 
other at this point, and the only surmise that seemed 
to fit the facts of the case was that there had been 
stretched across the chasm a swinging bridge of lianas 
—such as still are to be found spanning streams in the 
hot lands of Mexico—and that in the course of ages 
this had rotted entirely away. But as this bridge, if 
ever there had been one here, was absolutely gone, 
we found ourselves in as shrewdly strait a place as 
men well could be in. To go ahead was as clearly im- 
possible as was the hopelessness of turning back upon 
our path. At the most, we could only return to the 
valley out of which we had climbed with such thank- 
fulness; and rather than go back to die of starva- 
tion in that place, so beautiful and so desolate, there 
was not one of us but would have chosen to end all 


168 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


quickly by springing into the gulf above whieh we 
stood. 

But while we thus stood in dreary contemplation of 
the miserable prospect before us, Young, as his habit 
was, was spying about him sharply, and so spied out 
a way of deliverance for us. The announcement of his 
discovery was made in a very characteristic way. 

“ You set up to be some punkins of an engineer, now 
don’t you?” he said, addressing Rayburn. “ But did 
you ever happen to hear of a bridge that was hung up 
at one end an’ that was operated by swingin’ it back- 
ward an’ forward like a pendulum ?” 

“No,” Rayburn answered, promptly and decisively, 
“T never did.” 

“So I thought,” Young went on. ‘“ Well, you’ve 
admitted that in sev’ral things th’ man who was in 
charge of construction on this line could have given 
you points, an’ this swingin’ bridge notion is one of 
’em. I can’t say that I think much of it. It wouldn’t 
do in railroads, for sure; but there is a good deal to be 
said in favor of it when it helps folks out of such a 
hole as we’re in now—an’ if it still is in workin’ order, 
that is just what it’s going to do. There itis. Do you 
catch on?” 

We all looked in the direction in which Young point- 
ed, for his gesture was so earnest that even Fray An- 
tonio and Pablo caught the meaning of it, and so saw 
—pendent from a point far up on the overhang of rock, 
and but indistinctly showing in the shadow—a great 
chain that at its lower end was caught in a metal hook 
set in the face of the cliff at the extreme back of the 


THE HANGING CHAIN, 169 


ledge on which we stood. Formy part,I did not at once 
catch the meaning of Young’s words even when I saw 
the chain, but Rayburn understood it all in a moment. 

“By Jove!” he exclaimed, “ that zs a notion! You 
grab the end of it and just swing across to the other 
side !” 

Young already had loosened the chain from the hook 
and was testing its strength by putting his weight on 
it. At the end of it was a crossbar big enough to get 
a good grip upon; and this, and the chain itself, were 
wrought of the bright, hard metal of which we had 
encountered so many specimens. The upper end was 
made fast high above us in the out-jut of rock, very near- 
ly over the centre of the cafion ; so that no great force 
was required to carry whoever grasped the crossbar, 
and so swung out boldly, clear across the chasm to the 
ledge on the other side. But I confess that the thought 
of such a passage made me feel a little dizzy and sick ; 
and never did I long to be safely back in my class-room 
at Ann Arbor as I did just then! 

“Tt seems t’ be all right,” said Young, “but I guess 
you may as well take a pull on it with me, Rayburn. 
There’d be no fun in havin’ it fetch away when a man 
was about half across, an’ we may as well make th’ 
thing sure.” And then, as the chain still held firm 
under the double strain, he added, “ Well, here goes ;” 
and, so speaking, took a running start and went swing- 
ing out over the abyss. 

My heart was in my mouth as he leaped forth and 
shot out from and far below us; but in a moment he 
rose along the curve that he was traversing and was 


170 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


safely landed on the other side. “It’s a boss invention. 
Workin’ it is just as easy as rollin’ off a log,” he called 
across to us; and to show how easily the passage was 
made, he instantly swung himself back again. 

Pablo had manifested signs of strong uneasiness 
while this talk and action were in progress, and in a 
very anxious tone he now inquired: ‘ But how will it 
be with the Wise One, sefior ?” 

“Why, gettin’ him across will be as easy as open 
an’ shut,” Young answered, speaking in English to 
Rayburn and to me.’ “ We’ll just rig him in th’ rope 
slings again, an’ make him fast to th’ chain, an’ give 
him a good boost to start him, and over he’ll go before 
he fairly knows he’s started.” 

But when we came to apply this brisk statement of 
the case practically, we found it by no means easy of 
execution. El Sabio grew restive as we arranged the 
slings of rope about his body, evidently remembering, 
fearfully, the strange journey that he had made in the 
air when we had rigged him in a like manner in or- 
der to trice him up to where the stair began; and he 
grew yet more restive as we fastened the rope slings 
to the end of the chain. Rayburn had crossed to the 
other side—passing the chain back by weighting it with 
a rock—and stood ready to receive El Sabio when he 
was swung across. But partly owing to a want of 
skill in our management of him, yet more to his own 
unruliness—for just as we started him, with a strong 
push, he clapped down his fore-feet upon the edge of 
the cliff and so checked his swing outward—he did not 
swing within reach of Rayburn’s hands. And so he 


THE HANGING CHAIN. 171 


came back towards us again, and then out once more 
towards Rayburn; and so swung slowly and yet more 
slowly until at last he hung motionless over the very 
middle of the gulf, with nothing between him and the 
rocks below but a thousand feet of air. And then El 
Sabio began to kick with a vigor that set to rattling 
every link in the chain! 

Pablo was cast by this mischance into a veritable 
frenzy of fright; and we were most seriously frighten- 
ed also—not only because the destruction of the poor 
ass was imminent, but because of the danger which men- 
aced ourselves. Our party was divided, and should the 
chain give way, under stress of El] Sabio’s kicks and 
plunges, all possibility of our coming together again was 
at an end. Rayburn might leave us and go on; and 
so, perhaps, save his own life. But for the rest of us 
there would be no hope. Behind us was death by star- 
vation. In front of us was this impassable gulf. 

From Pablo, who was quite wild with dreadful an- 
ticipations of the parting of the chain and the loss to 
him forever of his friend, least was to be expected in 
the strait wherein we were; yet it was from Pablo that 
our rescue came. With a quick apprehension of the 
needs of the case, he rove a running-knot in the end of 
one of the pack-ropes, and with a dexterous cast of this 
improvised lasso set the loop of it about El Sabio’s neck 
as that unfortunate animal for a moment ceased his 
strugglings and hung still. And then we all strained 
on the rope together, and in a minute had El Sabio 
safely with us again; but in such a state of terror that 
pity for him wrung our hearts. 


173 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


But the limpness which the reaction from such dead. 
ly fear threw him into made handling him easy; and 
this time, when we launched him forth (taking the 
precaution, however, to fasten one end of a rope to the 
chain), he went sailing across the full width of the 
chasm, and Rayburn in a moment had him landed in 
safety. The instant that the chain was loosened Pab- 
lo hauled it back, and an instant later swung lightly 
across the cafion, and straightway fell to fondling the 
terrified creature and comforting him with all manner 
of tender words. And he so piteously besought us to 
give El Sabio one good drink that we passed the water- 
keg and the bucket across, and permitted the poor ass 
to drink half of our stock of water without debate of 
the sacrifice. Indeed, this refreshment was so necessary 
to him that without it I doubt if he could have gone on. 

While El Sabio thus gathered courage and strength 
again, Young swung over to the other side, and we 
passed our stores across from ledge to ledge—having 
ropes made fast to the chain, and so steadying each 
load from the one side while we hauled from the oth- 
er. This was easy work, and we quickly finished it. 
When it was ended I braced myself for the flying 
journey through the air across that gulf so deep that 
the bottom of it was lost in black shadows, through 
which the sparkling water faintly gleamed ; and my 
heart so throbbed within me as I took the bar in my 
hands, with the knowledge that should I lose hold of 
it death waited for me below in those dark shadows, that 
my breath came irregularly and I heard a dismal ring- 
ing in my ears. Yet I had less to fear than either of 


THE HANGING CHAIN. 17% 


the others who had crossed before me, for the ropes 
still were fast to the chain; and should I not swing far 
enough I would be helped to safety by my compan- 
ions. But for shame, I should have made my body 
fast to the chain by a rope sling, and so have gone 
across as our stores had gone rather than as a man. 
But my pride forbade my surrender in this fashion to 
my fears; and it was a lucky thing for me that it did. 
Holding the bar in my hands, I ran briskly across 
the ledge, and, with a strong kick on the edge of the 
cliff to give me additional impetus, I went spinning 
out into space. For an age, as it seemed to me, I 
sank rapidly ; while that horrible feeling possessed me 
—the like of which people subject to sea-sickness feel 
as the ship drops away beneath them into the trough of 
the sea—of falling away from my own stomach. And 
then, just as my strength seemed to be failing, and my 
hold on the bar loosing, I perceived that I was rising 
again; and this put a little fresh heart in me, and I 
tightened my grip on the bar. Ten seconds, no doubt, 
was the full extent of the time that my passage con- 
sumed; but it seemed to me then, and it seems to 
me still as I think of it, a long ten years. And a thrill 
of terror goes through me as I think also of how near I 
then came to a horrible death; for at the very moment 
that I reached the farther side of the cafion there was a 
little tinkling sound in the air above me, and the bar 
that I held was twitched out of my hands, and then came 
a loud jingling of metal on rock, and as I turned quickly 
I saw a gleam of sunlight catch the great chain as it 
went twisting downward into the black gulf below. 


174 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE, 


XV. 
THE TEMPLE IN THE CLOUDS. 


Dovusttuezss the violent strain to which the chain had 
been subjected by El Sabio’s kicking and plunging had 
loosened the fastenings, centuries old, which held it to 
the rock; for the chain had not broken, but had come 
away entire. I sank down on the rock as weak with 
terror as the poor ass had been; and like him I drank — 
greedily of water, and panted for a while, and at last 
found my courage coming back to me. 

Yet my case was a happy one compared with that 
of Fray Antonio. Howsoever narrow my escape had 
been, the fact remained that I had come out from my 
encounter with Death safe and unharmed; but on Fray 
Antonio’s shoulder we could but dread that Death al- 
ready had laid his hand. And that he knew how close 
to him Death was standing we could see by a certain 
elate and confident air of courage in his bearing, and 
by the wonderful tenderness and sweetness of his smile. 
Truly, never did I know a man so ready at all times as 
this man was to lay down the life that God had given 
him; holding it but as a trust that might at any mo- 
ment be called back to the source whence it came. Yet 
because it was a trust, meant to be put to useful pur- 
poses, Fray Antonio valued his life and cared for it. 


THE TEMPLE IN THE CLOUDS, 175 


And at this time it was he himself who devised a plan 
by which it might be saved. 

The ropes which were fastened to the chain, being 
held stoutly on the one side by Fray Antonio and on 
the other by Young, fortunately had broken as the 
great weight of the chain suddenly had come upon 
them, and had broken so close to the knots which held 
them that nearly the whole of their length remained. 
The plan that the monk now devised for coming across 
to us—and a bold heart was required even to think of 
this daring enterprise—was that with the two ropes 
fastened about his body at one end, and held by all of 
us at the other, he should swing down into the chasm 
and far under the promontory of rock on which we 
stood, and then that we should haul him up to us. The 
great difficulty in the way of executing this plan was 
in getting the line across between us; its great danger 
lay in the probability—notwithstanding the depth of 
the recess beneath us—that he would be dashed against 
the rocks with such force as to kill him outright. 

But Young, who usually was ready for any emer- 
gency that might arise, roused out a ball of twine that 
was a part of our stores, and one end of this he made 
fast to a fragment of rock, and by a strong heave of it 
landed it safe on the other side; whereafter the rigging 
of the double rope across was an easy matter. 

Very carefully, testing the knots as he made them, 
Fray Antonio fastened the double line about his body, 
beneath his shoulders, and so stood ready on the edge 
of the chasm; while we four stood holding the line, 
with all our muscles braced for the strain that would 


176 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


come upon it as he swung downward. For a moment 
he paused, with his face turned upward while his lips 
moved. ‘Then he waved his hand, and smiled as he 
called across to us, “It is as God wills!” and so drop- 
ped away from the ledge, and like a flash went down 
beyond our range of sight. 

We felt the jar on the ropes as his body struck 
against the face of the cliff far below us, and the reflex 
action as he swung out again, and thereafter the slower 
motion of the ropes as he swayed back and forth dan- 
gling over that black and awful chasm. And as the 
ropes settled into steadiness we drew him up towards 
us; yet dreaded, because of the dull weight of it, and 
because no assuring cry came up to us, that what we 
lifted was a corpse. 

And, in truth, as we raised the body of Fray Antonio 
over the edge of the cliff it seemed as though this dread 
were realized; for a great bloody gash was upon his 
temple, and his limbs were limp and lifeless, and his 
face was deathly pale. At sight of which there came 
into my heart a bursting pain, as though some one had 
stabbed me there; and there were tears in Young’s 
eyes; and Rayburn gave vent to his sorrow in a great 
curse that was half a groan. As for Pablo, whom no 
danger could daunt, and who would bear without flinch- 
ing any hurt of his own, this dreadful sight so moved 
him that he fainted dead away. 

Yet even in the moment that such deep sorrow seem- 
ed to be settling down upon us, Fray Antonio slightly 
moved his lips, and there came forth from them a low 
faint sigh—whereunon Young jumped up with a shout 


THE TEMPLE IN THE CLOUDS. 177 


and relieved his mind by administering to Pablo a 
hearty kick, whieh he accompanied with the remark: 
“You infernal fool of a Greaser Indian, what do you 
mean by swoundin’? He ain’t dead at all!” 

As tenderly as I could for the trembling of my hands, 
I washed away the blood from about the cut and bathed 
Fray Antonio’s pale face, while Rayburn gave him a 
sup of whiskey from his flask. And then, presently, 
his eyes opened and energy came into his body once 
more. In a little while he was on his feet again, and 
as well as ever, save for the smarting of his cut, and 
in his head a dizziness and a dull throbbing pain. Just 
what had happened he could not tell. He knew that 
he had struck against the rock with his feet, as he had 
planned to do; but he must have swung around, when 
the force of the impact had been thus partly broken, 
and struck his head against some sharp projection, and 
so have been cut and stunned. But it made no great 
difference how his hurt had come to him, since it had 
not proved to be a deadly one; therefore we forbore to 
question him further concerning it, and sought by quiet 
talk, that led softly into silence, to take his thoughts 
away from the peril that he had been in. Indeed, we 
all were glad to rest quietly where we were for the 
night, for our bodies were tired and our nerves were 
racked and strained. 

We should have been most thankful for a big potful 
of coffee, but there was no wood with which we could 
make a fire. The best that we could do, and there was 
not much comfort in it, was to chew some coffee grains 
after we had made a supper upon one of our few 

12 


178 THE AZTEC TREASUBRE-HOUSE. 


remaining tins of meat; and then we rolled ourselves in 
our blankets and lay down upon the bare rock. And 
I must say that if anybody had asked me at that mo- 
ment if archeology was a study that paid for the 
trouble that it cost, I should have said most unhesitat- 
ingly that it was not. 

Even sleep, which I greatly needed, and for which I 
earnestly longed, did not come to me easily; for each 
time that I seemed to be dropping gently away into 
unconsciousness I would be roused by the feeling that 
I was holding fast to the chain again, and so was slid- 
ing down the long curve among the shadows, with the 
great walls of the cafion towering infinitely above me, 
and with the black depth below. And in my sleep I 
made again the dreadful passage, and heard the clink- 
ing of the chain as it parted, and the rattle of it as it 
struck the rocks, and felt the grasp of Rayburn as he 
caught me, just as the bar was twitched out of my 
hands—and so woke to find Young shaking me, and to 
hear him say: “'There’s no earthly sense in your kick- 
in’ around that way, Professor; an’, anyhow, it’s time 
t? get up. It’s just a wonder how these Mexican morn- 
in’s put life into a man. Why, there’s a freshness in 
th’ air that’s goin’ t’ waste in this cafion that’s fit t 
make a coffin stand right up on end an’ dance a jig!” 

Even Fray Antonio, but for the soreness of his hurt, 
felt strong and well; and we ate another tin of meat— 
which was much less than we wanted to eat—and so 
started along the path hewn out of the side of the cliff; 
and what with the brightness and joyfulness of the 
morning, we certainly were in much higher spirits than 


THE TEMPLE IN THE CLOUDS. 179 


was at all reasonable in the case of men who had had 
such close companionship with Death so short a time 
before, and who still stood a very fair chance of dying 
dismally of starvation. The knowledge that, by the 
falling of the chain, our retreat had been again cut off 
did not at all trouble us. Even could we have crossed 
the cafion, and so have retraced our steps, we could 
have gone no farther than the valley of the lake; and 
we could as well die here as there. And we were stay- 
ed by the reasonable conviction that the path which 
we were travelling upon certainly would lead us out of 
the mountains at last—even if it did not lead us to 
the hidden city that we sought. 

For five or six miles we doubled on our course of tne 
day before, going back along the cafion and see.ng the 
path that we had followed a little below us on the 
other side; then, by a very easy grade, our course be- 
gan to ascend, and went on rising until the other path 
was so far below us that it ceased to be distinguishable, 
Thus we came to within a few hundred feet of the top 
of the cliffs, when a sudden turn to the left carried us 
into a narrow cleft in the rock. Here the path was 
very sharply inclined upward for a little way; and for 
the remainder of the distance to the top we ascended a 
long series of rudely cut steps, so steep that our legs 
fairly cracked under us as we neared the end of them. 

But we forgot our weariness as we came out upon 
the summit at last, and a great view of clouds and 
mountain peaks burst upon us; the like of which I 
never have seen approached save by the view out over 
the Gunnison country from the crest of the Marshall 


180 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


Pass. But here we saw all around us what there is 
seen only in one direction; for we were on a vastly 
high, square crest—very like that called the Gigante, 
which the traveller by the Mexican Central Railroad 
sees to the left as he nears Silao—and clouds and 
mountain peaks rose up about us on every side. 

But we did not long contemplate this heroic land- 
scape, for a cloud, which almost enveloped us as we 
finished our ascent of the stair, was swept still farther 
away by the brisk wind then blowing; so that sud- 
denly a vast building loomed largely through the fly- 
ing vapor, and in a moment was clear and distinct 
before our eyes. To find upon this bare mountain- 
top, among cloud solitudes so profound as these, such 
overpowering evidence of the labor and strength of 
man, sent thrilling through our breasts a wonder that 
was akin to awe. It seemed unreal, impossible, that 
in such a place such work could be accomplished ; and 
the very tangible reality of it made it seem to me one 
of those prodigies of man’s creation which old stories 
tell of as having been wrought by a league with the 
devil and at the cost of a human soul. 

Had there been any signs at all of human life about 
this solemn and majestic building, or upon the mount- 
ain-top whereon it stood, the chilling hold that it took 
upon our imaginations would have been less strong. 
What wrought upon us was the deadly silence, and 
the absolute stillness of everything save the drifting 
clouds. It seemed to us as though we had eome out from 
the living world and our own time into a dead region 
belonging to a long dead past; and I remembered with 


AT THE BARRED PASS. 181 


a shudder that we had entered this region through 
that gloomy cavern, where hundreds of the ancient 
dead were clustered in silent worship about the great 
silent idol carved in everlasting stone. It seemed as 
though some evil spell hung over us, that doomed us 
forever to wander in wild solitudes—which were the 
more appalling because constantly uprose before us 
tangible evidence of the strong current of eager hu- 
man life that had pulsed through them in former 
times. Young but put into his own rough language 
the thought that was in all our hearts when he de- 
clared, with a great oath, that for the sake of getting 
safe out of this lonely hole he’d contract to fight Ind- 
ians three days in every week for the rest of his life, 
and be glad to do it for the comfort of having some- 
body around who was alive. 


XVI. 
AT THE BARRED PASS. 


Tux whole top of the mountain, near a mile square, 
had been so levelled by nature that little remained 
to be done for its further smoothing by the hand of 
man. But the amount of work that had gone into 
the mere preparation for the building of the great 
temple was almost incredible. In the centre of the 
plateau a pyramidal mass of rock near a thousand feet 
square, of a piece with the mountain itself, had been 
so shaped and hewn that it rose in three great terraces 


182 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE, 


to the square apex on which the temple stood. These 
terraces slanted upward, surrounding the pyramid by 
a continuously ascending way that had its beginning 
and its ending in the centre of the eastern front—so 
that, allowing for the diminishing size of the pyramid, 
the distance by this way from the bottom to the top 
of it was more than a mile and a half. 

“Tt just took a slow-goin’, lazy heathen Greaser t’ 
think out a thing like this,” Young observed as we 
went up the path. ‘Now, if th’ Congregationalists 
that I was brought up among had put a church on a 
place like this—an’ they wouldn’t have been likely t’ be 
fools enough t’ do anything of th’ sort—they’d ’a’ had a 
set of steps runnin’ smack from th’ bottom t’ th’ top, 
an’ folks would have got up in no time. It’s just th’ 
Greaser fashion all over t’ spend a hundred years or so 
in makin’ a path five miles long around a hill about as 
high as th’ Boston State-house, so’s they can get up it 
easy an’ save their wind. But I wish they'd put in 
drinkin’ fountains along th’ road. [Tm as thirsty as a 
salt cod—an’ there’s so precious little water left in th’ 
keg that Pm afraid t’ begin at it for fear of suckin’ it 
all up.” 

“Drinking fountains?” Rayburn, who was a little 
in advance, called back to us. ‘“ Well, so they did. 
Come along and drink as much as you want to.” 

“Cut that, Rayburn,” Young answered. “I’m too 
dead in earnest about my being thirsty to stand any 
foolin’.” 

“Tm not fooling ”—we had caught up with him by 
this time—“look for yourself.” 


AT THE BARRED PASS. 183 


To which Young’s only reply was to spring forward 
eagerly and drink a long deep draught from a stone 
basin beside the path into which trickled a tiny stream 
from above. Finding water in this unlikely place was 
as great a surprise as it was a joy to us; for we all 
longed for it, yet dared not drink freely because our 
supply was nearly gone, It was touching to hear the 
long sigh of happiness that El] Sabio gave when at last 
he lifted his dripping snout out of the basin; and then 
to see the look that he gave Pablo, as though to thank 
him for so blessedly plentiful a drink. In truth, the 
Wise One had not tasted a drop of water for nearly 
twenty-four hours—not since his perilous passage of the 
cafiion—and his throat, and his poor little inside gener- 
ally, must have been very dry. 

When we came out on the top of the pyramid at 
last, which at that moment was wrapped in clouds al- 
most as dense as London fog, we perceived the ingen- 
ious plan that had been adopted in order to secure 
water plentifully on this mountain-top. By careful 
scoring of the rock with many little channels, all lead- 
ing toa cistern that seemed to be of great dimensions, 
the warm vapor of the clouds as it condensed into wa- 
ter on touching the chill stone surface was captured 
and safely stored away. And from the overflow of 
the cistern the fountain below was fed. 

But we did not stop to examine very carefully into 
this matter, so eager were we to press on to the temple 
close before us. This stood upon a terraced platform, 
cut from the living rock, and was a perfectly plain 
structure—with walls slightly receding inward as they 


184 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


rose, and wholly destitute of ornamentation. For its 
majestic effect it depended upon its great size and 
upon its admirable proportions; and being built of 
the dark rock of which the mountain was formed, and 
having about it much of the sombre feeling that char- 
acterizes Hgyptian architecture, it had an air of great 
solemnity and gloom. 

In silence we ascended the short flight of steps that 
led to the broad, doorless entrance—the only opening 
through the massive walls—and so came into the vast 
shadowy hall that these great walls enclosed. From 
front to back of this hall extended many rows of stone 
pillars—like the single row found in the great cham- 
ber among the ruins of Mitla—and by these were up- 
held the huge slabs of stone of which the roof was 
made. Far away from where we stood, down at the 
end of a long vista of pillars, was a stone altar on 
which was carved in stone a colossal figure of the god 
Chac-Mool. Looking back through the open entrance, 
I saw a break in the mountain peaks to the eastward; 
and so perceived that the first rays of the rising sun 
must needs enter here and strike full upon the disk 
that was poised in the figure’s hands. As Pablo 
caught sight of the great idol recumbent there, a mo- 
mentary shudder went through him and he made eer- 
tain motions with his hand before his eyes that were 
strange to me. 

As we drew near to the altar we found that in front 
of it was a sacrificial stone, still darkly stained where 
blood had flowed upon it; and beneath the stone neck- 
yoke, still resting there, was a withered remnant of 


AT THE BARRED PASS. 185 


human vertebrae. There was something very ghastly 
in finding—preserved by the very stone that had held 
him down while life was let out of him—this mere 
scrap of the last human victim who had perished here. 
As in the desolate valley, so also on this desolate 
mountain-top, the only proof that human life ever had 
been here was found in proof of human death. 

Save that our curiosity was gratified, and the bless- 
ing of the water which we had found, our ascent of 
the great pyramid and our examination of the temple 
bore no fruit. Young, who still seemed to think that 
tilting up and disclosing secret passages was an attri- 
bute of all statues of the god Chac-Mool, was here 
again convinced that his generalization from a single 
case was not a sound one. Ina serious way—that in 
itself would have been laughable but for the gloom of 
our surroundings—he climbed upon the altar and sat 
first on the head of the god, and then on his feet, and 
even tried the effect of seating himself upon the stone 
disk that the god upheld above his navel. But through 
all of these experiments the stone figure remained sol- 
idly immovable. | 

**T guess there was only one o’ that tippin’ kind,” 
Young said, at last, “ an’ he sort o’ flocked by himself. 
Let’s get out of here, anyway. If this ever was the 
Aztec bank that we’re lookin’ for, there must have 
been a prehistoric run on it that cleaned it out. They 
must have done that sort o’ thing in old times, eh, Pro- 
fessor? But it don’t make much difference to us now 
what they did or what they didn’t; an’ we'd better 
fill up with water an’ get out—that is, if there is any 


186 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


way of gettin’ out except along the way we came. 
There’s no good in goin’ back that way. It would 
be better t’ settle down here an’ starve comfortably 
without wearin’ out shoe-leather doin’ it. But I don’t 
mean t’ do that until P’ve had a look all around th’ 
top of this god-forsaken mountain, an’ made sure that 
there’s only one way down.” 

My own thoughts had been dwelling on the possi- 
bility that Young’s words expressed; for at this defi- 
nite point to which we had come, the path that we had 
come by very reasonably might end—so leaving us in 
this lonely region among the clouds to die slowly for 
lack of food. And there was a certain fitness in our 
having made our way so far among the dead only our- 
selves to die that added sombre fancies to our environ- 
ment of sombre realities. Yet there was a heartiness 
in Young’s resolutely expressed determination to search 
for a way out of our difficulties before at all yielding 
to them that insensibly cheered me. His words had a 
plucky ring to them ; and bravery is as catching as is 
fear. 

Our empty water-kegs were at the bottom of the 
pyramid, and when we reached the fountain on our 
downward way we waited there while Pablo went on 
with El Sabio and fetched them up to us. There was 
at least solid comfort in knowing, as we went on 
downward with the kegs all filled, that, whatever other 
death might come to us, at least we could not die of 
thirst. At the bottom of the pyramid we left Fray 
Antonio and Pablo, with El Sabio and the packs, and 
the three of us set out to explore the three sides of the 


AT THE BARRED PASS. 187 


mountain-top that were unknown to us in search of a 
downward path. A heavy mass of clouds had drifted 
over the mountain again, so thick that at a rod away 
all was white mist around us; and the light was grow- 
ing faint, for the day had come nearly to an end. In- 
deed, had we been upon the lower levels of the earth 
night would have been already upon us. 

Making my way along the edge of the precipice, 
where the plateau broke sheer off, was ticklish work; 
and half humorous, half melancholy thoughts went 
through my mind touching the absurdity of an ex- 
professor of Topical Linguistics in the University of 
Michigan being thus employed in path-hunting upon 
a lonely mountain-top in Mexico. Truly, adversity 
brings us strange bedfellows ; but far stranger are the 
straits into which a man comes who takes up with the 
study of archzology at first-hand. But my path-hunt- 
ing was without result, for nowhere along the edge of 
the plateau was there a break fit for the descent of any 
creature save such as had wings. At the end of near 
an hour the clouds once more lifted; and then I saw 
Rayburn coming towards me, but with a serious look 
upon his face that told that he also had been unsuc- 
cessful in his search. 

“Tt has rather a bad look, Professor,” he said, 
briefly, when I had told him that along all the face 
of the mountain that I had examined the rock went 
down sheer. He filled his pipe and lighted it, and 
we walked back to the base of the pyramid in silence, 
while he smoked. Young had not returned; but pres- 
ently we heard a shout that bad so hopeful a sound 


188 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


in it as to start us both to our feet and forth to meet 
him. 

“Have you found a way down?” Rayburn called, 
as he came nearer to us. 

“You bet I have,” he called back; “and, what’s 
more, I’ve seen somethin’ to eat.” 

“Seen something!” Rayburn answered, as he joined 
us. ‘‘ Why the dickens didn’t you ge¢ it?” 

“Well, because it was better’n a mile away from 
me. It looked like a mountain sheep, as well as I could 
make out; but there it was for sure; an’ thinkin’ how 
good that critter will taste roasted has given me a 
regular twistin’ pain all through my empty inside! 
But th’ point is that down on that side o’ th’ mount- 
ain there’s game; I saw birds, too, but I couldn’t 
make out what they were; an’, somehow, it looks 
different down there. It don’t look like these d n 
dead places we’ve been prowlin’ through for more’n 
a coon’s age. It looks as if God remembered it, an’ 
it was alive! Why, th’ very smell that came up had 
somethin’ good about it; an’ there was a different 
taste to th’ air. I tell you, Rayburn, I didn’t know 
what a lonely an’ mis’rable an’ lost chump sort of a 
way I was in until I looked over there into that place 
where th’ whole business ain’t run by dead folks. 
An’ what’s more, Professor, that’s the trail for us; 
for, right where it starts down, there’s th’ King’s 
symbol an’ th’ arrow, all reg’lar, blazed on th’ 
reck.” 

“Ts the trail good enough to make a start on now?” 
Rayburn asked; “we won’t have more than half an 


AT THE BARRED PASS. 189 


hour more light, but I’d give a lot to get off this 
mountain before dark, and every foot down that we 
go we'll be that much warmer. We'd stand a pretty 
fair chance of freezing up here to-night without any 
fire.”’ 

‘Th’ trail’s all right for a good half-mile, anyway,” 
Young answered; ‘an’ I guess it’s good all th’ way. 
It’s pretty much th’ same as th’ one we come up by, 
an’ that’s good enough, where it don’t jump cafions, 
t? go along in th’ dark; but we must rustle if we 
mean t’ do much by daylight.” 

We were back at the pyramid by this time, and we 
found Fray Antonio very willing to be off with us that 
we might try to get well down the mountain before 
night set in; for at that great elevation the quick beat- 
ing of his heart added very sensibly to the throbbing 
pain of his wound. Therefore we lost no time in get- 
ting our packs upon our backs, and upon the back of 
El Sabio, and briskly started downward ; and the keen 
cold that came into the air, as the sun sunk away be- 
hind the mountain peaks at last, warned us that it was 
safer to take the risks of a descent almost in darkness 
than to stay for the night upon that bleak mountain- 
top without a fire. 

In twenty minutes we perceived a comforting change 
in the temperature ; and at the end of an hour—daur- 
ing the last half of which we walked slowly and cau- 
tiously through the fast-thickening darkness—there 
was enough warmth in the air about us to make camp- 
ing for the night endurable. But we still were at a 
great elevation, and the thin air was bitingly keen, 


190 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


and all the more so because of the scant meal that we 
had to comfort us and to put strength into us before 
we wrapped ourselves in our blankets for sleep. 

“ 'What’s a mis’rable two pounds of corned-beef 
among five of us,” Young exclaimed, in a tone of an- 
gry contempt, “when every man in th’ lot is hungry 
enough t’ eat th’ whole of it, an’ th’ tin box it comes 
in, an’ then go huntin’ for a square meal? An’ t’ 
think o’ that sheep I saw! I say, Rayburn, did you 
ever eat a roast fore-shoulder of mutton, with onions 
an’ potatoes baked under it, an’ a thick gra—” 

“If you don’t hold your jaw about things like 
that,” Rayburn struck in, “Tll murder you!”—and 
there was such fierceness in his voice, and he truly 
was such a savage fellow when his anger was up, that 
Young was half frightened by his outburst, and so 
was silent. I must say that I wish that he had alto- 
gether held his tongue; for, somehow, the smell of 
mutton and onions and potatoes, all cooking together, 
was so strong in my nostrils, and this smell so set to 
yearning my very hollow inside, that it was a long 
while before I could sleep at all; and when I did 
sleep, it was to be pursued by dreams of painful hun- 
griness which were but too surely founded in painful 
fact. Certainly, it was very indiscreet in Young, to 
say the least of it, to make a remark of that nature at 
that untoward time. 

However, that was the last day that we suffered for 
want of food. I was awakened in the very early morn- 
ing by the sound of a rifle-shot, and sprang to my feet, 
brandishing my revolver, with a confused belief in my 


AT THE BARRED PASS. 191 


sleepy mind that we were attacked by Indians again; 
and, truly, my first feeling was one of pleasure at the 
thought of meeting, even in deadly combat, with men 
who were alive. 

“Tt’s all right, Professor,” Rayburn said. “ We’re 
not fighting anybody. But Pve killed a mountain 
sheep, and if we only can get him we’ll have a solid 
breakfast, even if we have to eat him raw. He was 
over on that point of rock, and he’s tumbled down 
clear into the valley, and the sooner we get down 
there and hunt for him the better.” 

In the bright light of the early morning we could see 
below us a glad little valley, in which trees and grass 
grew, and in the centre of which was a tiny lake. But 
what gave us most joy was seeing birds flying over 
the face of the water, and half a dozen mountain sheep 
scampering away at the sound of Rayburn’s shot. 
Truly, the sight of these live creatures was the most 
cheery that ever came to my eyes; and as I beheld 
them, and realized that at last we had emerged from 
the dreary, death-stricken region in which as it seemed 
to me we had spent years, a great wave of happiness 
rolled in upon and filled my heart. As it was with me, 
so was it with the others: who gave sighs of gladness 
as thus they found themselves no longer wanderers 
among the chill shades of ancient death, but once more 
moving in the warm living world. 

The path, cut out along the mountain-side, went 
downward by a sharper grade than that by which we 
had ascended; and we descended it joyfully at a swing- 
ing trot, with a new life in us that made us break out 


192 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


into lively talk and laughter that set the echoes to ring- 
ing. And presently, in a very jerky fashion because 
of his rapid motion, Pablo piped away on his mouth- 
organ with “ Yankee Doodle ”—and this was the first 
time that he had had the heart to play upon his be- 
loved ‘“‘instrumentito” since our passage of the lake 
beneath which lay the city of the dead. 

In an hour we came fairly down into that bright 
and lovely valley, where was the sweet sound of birds 
calling to each other, and the glad sight of these live 
creatures flying through the air. As for the sheep that 
Rayburn had killed, he was knocked pretty well into a 
jelly by his half-mile or so of tumble down the mount- 
ain-side. But we were not disposed to be over-fastid- 
ious, and we quickly had his ribs roasting over a brisk 
fire: that yet was not so brisk as was our hunger, for 
we began to eat before the meat was much more than 
warmed through. When our ravening appetite was ap- 
peased a little, Young got out the coffee-pot and set 
to making coffee. And then, with meat well cooked 
and coffee in abundance, we made such a meal as can 
be made only by half-starved men who suddenly have 
come forth from the dark shadows of threatening death 
into the glad sunshine of safety. Of what further perils 
might be in store for us we neither cared nor thought. 
Our one strong feeling was the purely animal joy bred 
of deliverance from gloom and danger, and the packing 
of our bellies with hearty food. 

When, at last, our huge meal was ended, we settled 
back upon our blankets, and fell to smoking. Present- 
ly Rayburn gave a prodigious yawn and laid aside his 


AT THE BARRED PASS. 193 


pipe. “I think I'll take a nap,” he said. I saw that 
Young already was nodding and that Pablo had sunk 
down into slumber; while El Sabio, who had come 
even closer to starving than we had come, most thank- 
fully rammaged among the rich grass. My eyes were 
heavy, and I stretched myself out on my blankets, with 
the warm sunshine comforting my stiffened body, and 
presently sunk softly into delicious sleep. 

I partly woke a few moments later, as Fray Antonio 
rose, thinking that we all were lost in slumber, and 
walked a little apart from us. He alone had made a 
meal in reasonable moderation, and I saw now that he 
had gone aside to pray. For a moment the thought 
_ stirred in me that I would join him in what I knew 
was his thanksgiving for our deliverance; but sleep 
had too strong a hold upon me, and my body slowly 
fell back upon the blankets and my eyes slowly closed, 
carrying into my slumber the sight on which they last 
had rested: the monk kneeling upon the grass beside 
a great gray rock, with clasped hands and face turned 
upward, pouring his soul out in grateful prayer. 

It was well on in the afternoon when we all woke 
again; and Young’s first remark was that it must be 
about supper-time. Rayburn fell in with this notion 
promptly, and so did I myself—rather to my astonish- 
ment, for it seemed unreasonable that after such a 
stuffing I should desire to eat so soon again. But we 
did make a supper almost as hearty as our breakfast 
had been, and in a little while wrapped ourselves in 
our blankets, with our feet towards the heaped-up fire, 
and went off once more to sleep, and slept through 

13 


194 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


until sunrise of the following day. In truth, the men- 
tal strain, bred of our gloomy surroundings and of the 
dread of starvation that had possessed us, had taxed 
our physical strength more severely than our mount- 
ain climbing and our lack of nourishment. The great 
amount of strong food that we ate, and our long slum- 
ber, showed nature’s demand upon us that our waste 
of tissue should be made good. 

When we woke again on the second morning, we 
all were fresh and strong and eager to press onward. 
There was little left of the sheep to carry with us; but 
Rayburn shot half a dozen birds, some species of duck, 
as we skirted the lake in our passage across the val- 
ley, so there was no fear that we should lack for food, 
At its western end the valley narrowed into a cafion. 
There was no choice of paths, for this was the sole 
outlet, and we were assured that we were on the right 
path by finding the King’s symbol and the pointing 
arrow carved upon the rock. The cafion descended 
very rapidly, and by noon we were so far below the 
level of the Mexican plateau that the air had a tropical 
warmth in it; and so warm was the night—for all the 
afternoon we continued to descend—that we had no 
need for blankets when we settled ourselves for sleep. 

Rayburn was of the opinion that we were close upon 
the Tierra Caliente, the hot lands of the coast; and 
when we resumed our march in the morning he went 
on in advance of the rest of us, that he might maintain 
a cautious outlook. If he were right in his conjecture 
as to our whereabouts, we might at any moment come 
upon hostile Indians. It was towards noon that he 


AT THE BARRED PASS. 195 


came softly back to us and bade us lay down our 
packs and advance silently with him, carrying only our 
arms. ‘There’s something queer ahead; and I thought 
that I heard voices,” he explained. “But there must 
be no shooting unless we are shot at. Some of these 
Indians are friendly, and we don’t want to start a row 
with them if they are willing not to row with us.” 

The cafion was very narrow at this point, and high 
above us its walls drew so closely together that the 
shadows about us were deep. As we rounded a bend 
in it, the rock closed above our heads in a great arch, 
so that we were in a sort of natural tunnel; at the far 
end of which was a bright spot showing that a wide 
and sunny open space was beyond. But over this open- 
ing were bars which cut sharply against the light, as 
though a gigantic spider had spun there a massive web; 
and as we drew nearer to this curious barrier we saw 
beyond it a broad and glorious valley, rich with all 
manner of luxuriant tropical growth and flooded every- 
where with the warm light of the sun. 

We approached the strange barrier cautiously, and 
our wonder at it was increased as we found that it was 
made of the bright metal of which we had found so 
many specimens; and still more we wondered as we 
found that the bars were fastened on the side from 
which we approached, so that we could remove them 
easily, while from the side of the valley they presented 
an impassable barrier. In strong excitement we drew 
out the metal pins which dropped into slots cut in the 
rock and so held the bars fast, and in a few minutes 
we had cleared the way for our advance. Just as we 


196 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE., 


were making ready to pass through the opening we 
heard the sound of voices; and as we quickly drew back 
into the shadows two men sprang up suddenly before 
us, and cried in wonder as they saw that the lower 
bars across the opening were gone. Yet the expression 
upon their faces was not that of anger; rather did they 
seem to be stirred by a strong feeling of joy with which 
was also awe. Both men were accoutred in the fashion 
which the pictured records show was usual with the 
Aztec warriors, and one of them—as was indicated by 
his head-dress and by the metal corselet that he wore 
—was a chief; and they challenged us sharply, yet with 
gladness in their tones, in the Aztec tongue. 

So sudden and so ringing was this challenge, and so 
startling was the uprising of the men before us, that 
as we sprang back into the shadow we instinctively 
stood ready with our arms. But Fray Antonio, not 
having any intent to join in the fight, was cooler than 
the rest of us, and instantly perceived that fighting was 
not necessary. Therefore he it was who first spoke 
to these strangers; and his first word to them was, 
“Friends 1” 

Then the watchmen, for such they seemed to be, 
spoke eagerly together for a moment, and pressed to 
the opening to look upon us; yet seeing us but dim- 
ly because of the dark shadows which surrounded us. 
Pablo was closest to them, and I marvelled to see how 
like them he was in look and in air. Him they first 
caught sight of, and as they saw him they both turn- 
ed from the opening, and, as though calling to some one 
at a distance, gave both together a great glad shout. 


AT THE BARRED PASS. 197 


Instantly, at some little distance, the cry was repeated; 
and so again farther on and yet farther, with ever more 
voices joining in it; so that it swelled and strength- 
ened into a great roar of rejoicing that seemed to sweep 
over the whole of the valley before us, and to fill it 
everywhere with tumultuous sounds of joy. 

As though the duty that they were charged with had 
been thus accomplished, the men turned again to us, 
and he of the higher rank, speaking the Aztec language, 
yet with turns and changes in that tongue which were 
strange to me, eagerly called to us: 

“Come forth to us! Come forth to us!” he cried. 
“ Now is the prophecy of old fulfilled and the watch 
rewarded that our people have maintained from gen- 
eration to generation through twenty cycles here at 
the grated way! Come forth to us, our brothers—who 
bring the promised message from our lord and king!” 

I turned to Fray Antonio as these words were spoken, 
and I saw in his face that which made me confident in 
my own glad conviction that here at last was the secret 
place for which so long, and through such perils, we 
had sought. Here indeed had we found the hidden 
people of whom the dying Cacique had spoken and of 
whom the monk’s letter had told; the strong contin- 
gent of the ancient Aztec tribe that ages since the wise 
King Chaltzantzin had saved apart, that when theif 
strength was needed they might come forth to ward 
their weaker brethren against conquest by a foreign foe. 
And the great happiness begotten of this glad discov- 
ery filled all my body with a throbbing joy. 

Yet as we went out through the opening that we had 


198 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


made between the bars, and the watchers saw us fairly 
in the sunlight, they sprang back as though in alarm. 
Rayburn met this demonstration promptly by making 
the peace-sign—raising aloft the right arm—that is 
common to all North American Indians; and after a 
moment of hesitation the chief answered to this in kind. 
So there was peace between us as we advanced ; but it 
seemed to me that their regard of us now had in it 
more of wonder and less of awe. 


XVII. 


OF OUR COMING INTO THE VALLEY OF AZTLAN. 


So unexpectedly had we come upon these strangers, 
and so marvellous was the finding thus of the hidden 
tribe for which we had sought so long, that I could 
not but dread,as we advanced towards the Aztec war- 
riors, lest I should wake suddenly and find that it all 
wasadream. And they, also, as it seemed to me, looked 
upon us doubtingly, and with somewhat of dread in 
their regard, as though uncertain whether we were be- 
ings from another world, or men of flesh and blood 
like themselves. 

Not until we were close upon them did further 
words— after that first challenge and answer —pass 
between us; and then the elder of the two, still mak- 
ing the peace-sign with his raised right hand, and 
speaking with a trembling in his voice, as though deep 
emotion moved him, called to us: ‘‘ Have our brothers 


OF OUR COMING INTO THE VALLEY OF AZTLAN. 199 


need of our strength? Bring ye the token that sum- 
mons us to their aid ?” 

I should have been glad just then for opportunity 
to consult with my companions as to what answer I 
should make to these questions, for I perceived that 
our position was a very critical one, and that even 
our lives might depend upon the wisdom of my reply. 
For a moment I waited in the hope that Fray Antonio 
would make answer; but as he remained silent, there 
was nothing for it but that I should take the hazard 
upon myself. Therefore, bringing forth the ancient 
piece of gold from the snake-skin bag—for so I had 
carried it constantly, even as the Cacique had done 
before me, and others before him, for more than three 
hundred years—lI held it towards the man who had 
spoken, and said, firmly: “Here is the token of sum- 
mons left behind him by Chaltzantzin; but we come 
not to call you forth to battle, but to bring tidings 
that the fate which that wise king and prophet foresaw 
for his people, long since was fulfilled. In the time 
appointed, the stranger foemen overcame and enslaved 
your brethren, bringing to pass that which Chaltzant- 
zin foretold; and the message that then was sent to 
call you forth to their aid reached you not, because 
even the wisdom of Chaltzantzin was powerless against 
the will of the gods. Yet the gods desired not to de- 
stroy your brethren, but to punish them; and their 
punishment now is at an end. Once more are they 
free, and once more is their ruler a wise and valiant 
man of their own race. Therefore, the news which 
we bring you is not sorrowful, but glad.” 


200 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


While I was thus speaking, the ringing cries which 
at the first alarm had sounded over all the valley grew 
louder and stronger; but as yet we saw only the two 
men who at the first had confronted us—for we were 
in a deep recess in the mountain, whence the ground 
dropped away in front, so that the immediate fore- 
ground was hid from us, and we saw only some distant 
meadows, and then a broad lake, and over this more 
meadows and a sweep of heavy timber, and back of all 
great mountains rising against the clear blue sky. 

But as my speech ended, and before those to whom 
it was addressed at all had digested the wonder of it, 
and so hesitated in their reply, a half-dozen men and a 
woman or two came in sight in the narrow way before 
us, panting after their rapid ascent of the acclivity ; 
and the calls of others pressing up the slope behind 
them sounded loudly, and in a very little while a crowd 
of a hundred or more pressed about us, all gazing at 
us and questioning us with a most eager surprise. For 
the most part these seemed to be laborers from the 
near-by fields; for many of them carried agricultural 
implements, and their bare legs and arms were splashed 
with mud and were grimy of the soil. As for the look 
of them, save that the flowing garments of cotton cloth 
which the women wore were embroidered in a fanciful 
fashion, I could not have distinguished these people 
from the tallest and strongest of the Indians dwelling 
in the hot lands of the coast about Vera Cruz, The 
men, who wore only a cloth twisted about their loins, 
were as magnificent fellows as I ever saw. Every 
one of them was tall and straight, with broad shoul- 


@F OUR COMING INTO THE VALLEY OF AZTLAN. 201 


ders and narrow hips, and the muscles of their arms 
and legs stood out like cords. From Pablo, who was 
an unusually tall and well-formed lad, they differed 
only in the color of their skins—which were decided- 
ly darker than his, as was to be expected in the case 
of men dwelling in this tropical region at the level of 
the sea. 

Towards Pablo these people manifested a familiar 
- curiosity quite unlike their reverential manner towards 
the rest of us, who so obviously were not of their own 
race. And Pablo was as much perplexed by their 
questions as they were by his answers; for never was 
a conversation carried on so hopelessly at cross-pur- 
poses. Our boy, being spoken to by folk who obvi- 
ously were as entirely Mexicans as he was himself, and 
in a tongue that practically was that which he had 
been born to—for the Indians dwelling in the Gua- 
dalajara suburb of Mexicalcingo, being the direct de- 
scendants of a pure Aztec stock, speak the Nahua lan- 
guage very correctly—could not at all realize that he 
was at last among the ancient race for which we had 
searched so long. It was his belief that we had come 
out, in accordance with Rayburn’s forecast, into the 
coast country, and that the people around him were 
the ordinary dwellers in the hot lands. And the Az- 
tecs, knowing him to be one of themselves, no doubt 
believed that he knew of the purpose for which they 
had been left to dwell apart, and so plied him with 
questions concerning their brethren from whom through 
long ages they had been separated. 

As their talk went on, getting the more involved 


202 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


with every question and reply, a tendency towards ill- 
temper began to develop itself on each side ; for Pablo 
considered that these people, who professed to be igno- 
rant of so important a city as Guadalajara, were mak- 
ing game of him; and they were not less disposed to 
believe that he either was answering them falsely or 
that he was a fool. Fortunately, before any harm came 
of these misunderstandings, an interruption brought a 
temporary end to their talk. 

There was a stir among the crowd, and then an open- 
ing was made in it, through which came an elderly man 
wearing military trappings similar to, but much hand- 
somer than those worn by the two warriors whom we 
had first encountered; and it was obvious, from the air 
of deference with which these saluted him, that he was 
their superior officer. In spite of the dignity of his 
demeanor it was evident that he was greatly excited 
by our advent, and his voice quivered and broke a lit- 
tle as he asked us who we were and whence we came, 
As I repeated what I had already told the guard, and 
showed the gold token, the expression upon his face 
was that of extreme perplexity. That the gold token 
gave us a strong claim upon his respect, almost upon 
his reverence, was apparent in his manner as I showed 
it to him; but the conditions under which it was pre- 
sented obviously rendered him very uncertain as to 
what action was proper for him to take. 

When [ had finished my statement, and had returned 
the token to its place in the snake-skin bag (for the 
wisdom of carefully retaining this potent talisman in 
our possession was evident), the officer turned to the 


OF OUR COMING INTO THE VALLEY OF AZTLAN. 203 


two watriors, and they conversed for a while in low 
tones apart from us. Of their talk I could catch only 
a few words, but several times I heard repeated the 
name Itzacoatl, and frequent reference was made to 
the Twenty Lords. I gathered, too, that the name of 
the officer was Tizoc, and that the name of the elder 
of the two warriors, a swarthy man, was Ixtlilton. In 
the mean time, out of respect to the officer, the crowd 
had drawn away from us—being now swelled to very 
considerable numbers—but those composing it gazed 
at us in wonder, and among them was a steady mur- 
mur of low talk, like the buzzing of a hive of bees. 
When his conference with the warriors was ended, 
Tizoc approached us, and with him came a younger 
man, who carried a roll of paper in his hand. The face 
of the officer still wore a troubled, doubting expression, 
and these feelings were expressed also in the tones 
of his voice as he spoke to us. “For the coming of 
the token from our lord Chaltzantzin we who dwell in 
this Valley of Aztlan have waited through many ages,” 
he said; “but the promise was given that the token 
should come to us from our brethren in the time of their 
need, and should be brought by those of our own race. 
But you tell us that the time of need long since is past, 
and ye who bring the token are of a race that is strange 
to us; and even this one among you who seems to be 
of our brethren speaks strangely of strange things. 
Had ye come in the way that long past was prom- 
ised, there would have been no room for questioning 
your right of entry here nor your authority over us; 
and I, who am the Warden of the Pass—being in right 


204 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


succession from him whom our lord Chaltzantzin ap. 
pointed to this high office—would have been the first 
to do you reverence and honor. But in this strange 
ease that has arisen I hold it to be my duty to send 
news of your coming to the Priest Captain, Itzacoatl, 
that he and his Council of the Twenty Lords may de- 
eide what now is right to do. In this I mean no dis- 
respect and no unkindness; and while we await the 
Priest Captain’s orders I shall have the pleasure to offer 
you that rest and refreshment of which you stand in 
need.” 

To this firm but courteous speech I was in the act 
of replying in fit terms of equal courtesy—for all that 
Tizoc had said was so reasonable that no exception 
could be taken to it—-when an outburst on Young’s 
part interrupted me. 

“Hold on there, young fellow!” he cried. “Tl be 
shot if ’m goin’ t’ stand bein’ made a fool of that 
way! If you can’t make a better likeness of me than 
that, you’d better shut up shop an’ go out of th’ 
business.” 

I turned quickly, and saw Young standing beside 
Tizoc’s attendant, and looking half angrily and half 
laughingly at the sheet of paper that he held in his 
hand. Fearful that some harm might come from 
Young’s maladroitness, I joined them quickly; and 
only a strong sense of the gravity of our situation re- 
strained me from laughing outright as I beheld the 
eause of his wrath. For the secretary, as I now per- 
ceived him to be, had made sketches in color of each 
member of our party; and while they all did violence 


OF OUR COMING INTO THE VALLEY OF AZTLAN. 205 


to our vanity, that of Young—with a bald head out of 
all proportion to the size of his body, and with most 
aggressively red hair—was so outrageous a caricature 
that there really was some justice in his resentment 
of it. 

But this was not a time when resentment could be 
safely manifested, and I hurriedly explained to Young 
that these pictures, no doubt, were to be transmitted 
as a part of the report that Tizoc was about to make 
to the King concerning us, and that he must find no 
fault with them. 

“« He’s goin’? t’? send that thing t’ th’ King an’ say 
it’s me, is he? No, he’s not—not by a jugful! See 
here, Professor! here’s a photograph that I had tak- 
en last spring in Boston. I meant t’ give it to a girl 
before I came away, but she went back on me an’ I 
didn’t. It’s not much of a photograph, but it don’t 
look like a squash trimmed with red clover. If they 
want to send anything, let ’em send that.” And before 
I could stop him, Young had taken the photograph out 
of his pocket-book and had handed it to the secretary, 
with the remark, “Just say t’ him, Professor, that he 
is t? give that t’ th’ King, an’ tell him +’ tell th’ 
King that Mr. Seth Young, of Boston, sends it with his 
compliments.” 

After all, no harm came of this absurd performance, 
but rather good ; for the secretary exhibited the pho- 
tograph to Tizoc, and both of them, and the two war- 
riors also, were lost in wonder at its marvellous likeness 
to the original, and evidently held us in increasingly 
great respect because we were the possessors of such 


206 THE AZTEC TREASURH-HOUSE. 


an extraordinary work of art. Young was a good deal 
chagrined, however, because the picture of him that 
the secretary had drawn was forwarded as a part of 
Tizoc’s despatches. He said that since he had set up 
a good likeness of himself, it wasn’t the square thing 
to send the King a bad one. 

When the secretary, bearing the despatches, had de- 
parted, Tizoc requested us to accompany him to the 
near-by guard-house, where we could refresh ourselves 
by bathing, and where food and drink would be pro- 
vided for us. This order, for such it was, we obeyed 
gladly ; for we were both weary and hungry, and the 
prospect of what Young described as a good wash and 
a square meal after it, was very pleasing to us. A de- 
tachment of men from the guard-house, accoutred in 
the same handsome fashion as Ixtlilton and his compan- 
ion, had arrived while the secretary’s portrait-work was 
in progress ; and I observed that all of these guards- 
men (excepting only Ixtlilton, whose skin was dark,) 
were much lighter in color and more gracious in bear- 
ing than the men in the crowd around us. So marked, 
indeed, was this difference that they seemed scarcely 
to belong to the same race. 

As we moved away through the opening that the 
crowd made for us, with a platoon of guardsmen in 
advance, and another in our rear, Pablo touched my 
arm and was about to speak to me; but before his 
mouth could open there sounded suddenly from the 
hollow way in the mountain behind us a mighty bray. 
“ Ah, the little angel!” Pablo cried. ‘ Hearken to him, 
sefior, calling to me.” And so moved was Pablo by 


OF OUR COMING INTO THE VALLEY OF AZTLAN. 207 


this evidence of El Sabio’s affection that only my firm 
grasp upon his arm restrained him from attempting a 
dash through the guards to where the creature was 
penned in by the metal bars. 

Truly, there is no sound more terrifying to those 
who are strangers to it than the braying of an ass; 
therefore, I was not at all surprised that a very consid- 
erable part of the crowd incontinently took to its heels; 
and I needed no better evidence of the bravery of the 
guardsmen who composed our escort than the steadi- 
ness with which they faced about in readiness to meet 
whatever danger might come forth from the gap in the 
mountain in the wake of this great roaring. Yet what 
they saw there was only the mild face of the Wise One 
extended towards us through the opening in the bars. 

To Tizoc, who was standing beside me, and who 
had not displayed even the slightest tremor of alarm 
as the appalling noise had broken upon us, I explained 
that the roaring creature was not harmful, but gen- 
tle and biddable; and I begged that other of the bars 
might be removed, so that it might come forth and 
join us. That he acceded instantly to my request gave 
me a good opinion of his own faithfulness and hon- 
esty ; for a man of a suspicious and crafty nature 
assuredly would have believed that my request was 
but a trap laid for his destruction; and thereupon the 
bars were removed. And the truth of my words was 
made manifest, as El Sabio came instantly to Pablo 
and received his caresses with every sign of gentleness 
and affection. But even Tizoc did not disguise his 
wonder upon beholding this strange beast, for the 


208 THE AZTEC TREASUBRE-HOUSE. 


largest four-footed creature in all that valley, as he 
told me, was a little animal of the deer species, that 
was not much bigger than a hare. And when I bade 
Pablo mount upon El Sabio’s back, the look of sur- 
prise in Tizoc’s face changed suddenly to an expres- 
sion of troubled doubt, in which was also alarm. Un- 
der his breath I heard him mutter, “Can it be that 
the prophecy will be fulfilled?” But whatever the 
cause of his inward disturbance was, he spoke not of 
it, but turned once more forward, and gave the order 
to march. | 

The crowd, seeing that no harm was like to come 
to them, pressed forward once more, and gazed with 
open-mouthed wonder—and also, as it seemed to me, 
with awe—at the prodigious spectacle which Pablo, 
gravely riding upon the ass’s back, presented to them, 
And so, with the guards before and behind us, we 
marched onward into the Valley of Aztlan. 


XVIII. 
THE STRIKING OF A MATCH. 


As we emerged from the nook in the mountain-side 
the whole of the valley lay open before us, and never 
was a more lovely spot beheld by the eyes of man. A 
half-dozen leagues in front of us rose the great mount- 
ain wall which shut in its farther side, and about as 
far away to the right and to the left these walls swept 
around in vast curves and joined the cliffs through 


THE STRIKING OF A MATCH. 209 


which we had come by the hollow way that tunnel- 
led keneath them. A noble lake extended nearly the 
whole length of the valley, and covered near a third 
of its width, and so seemed less like a lake than like 
a calm and majestic river. From the water-side the 
land rose in broad terraces, broken by belts of timber 
and by many groups of smaller trees, which, because 
of the regularity of their growth, I took to be fruit 
plantations. All the open country seemed to be one 
vast garden, most carefully tended, and everywhere 
cut up by little canals, whence water for irrigation 
was drawn. Scattered everywhere about the valley 
were single houses embowered in trees, and from 
where we stood we could see also four or five little 
towns, which also were plentifully shaded. And on 
the lake many boats were passing, of which several 
were of a considerable size, and were fitted with cu- 
riously shaped sails. And all this exquisite tropical 
beauty of ample water and luxuriant foliage shone 
richly beneath the bright splendor of a deep blue 
tropical sky. 

Yet that which most strongly attracted our atten- 
tion was not this charming display of the manifold 
excellencies of God’s handiwork, but rather a wonder- 
ful manifestation of the handiwork of man. Over 
against us, on the far side of the lake, slantingwise 
from where we stood, rose a mass of buildings of such 
vastness and such majestic design that at the first 
glance we took it to be one of the square-topped 
mountains which are found not uncommonly in this 
portion of the world, and around the bases of which 

14 


210 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


are sloping heaps of the fragments of rock which 
have broken away through countless ages from their 
weather-worn sides. Yet in a moment we perceived 
that what we saw was a walled city built upon a great 
promontory, that jutted out from the mountain-side ; 
and in the same breath Fray Antonio and I called out 
together, “It is the city of Culhuacan !” 

As we uttered this name Tizoc turned towards us 
quickly, and with a startled, troubled look upon his 
face. “They are not of our race,” he said, as though 
speaking his thoughts aloud; “yet the sacred name, 
that among us only a few know, is known to them!” 
and the troubled look upon his face deepened as we 
went onward. 

The way by which we descended was a narrow road 
carried zigzag down the cliff—for the pass by which 
we had entered the valley was fully six hundred feet 
above the level of the lake—and at short intervals 
along its course this road was defended by walls of 
very solid masonry, pierced with openings so narrow 
that only one man at a time could pass through them, 
That the walls were for defence was shown by the piles 
of metal bars on the inner side of each opening—the 
side towards the mountain—so arranged that in a mo- 
ment they could be slipped into sockets in the stone- 
work, thus closing effectually the way. 

Perceiving that we regarded with surprise this curi- 
ous system of fortification, Tizoc explained: ‘These are 
the barriers set up against the Tlahuicos, who, heeding 
not the order given of old by our lord Chaltzantzin, have 
striven many times to break forth from the valley—for 


THE STRIKING OF A MATCH. 211 


among these men there are many of perverse natures 
and evil minds.” 

In tlahuico I recognized a. Nahua word that means 
“men turned towards the earth,” but what its meaning 
might be in the sense in which Tizoc employed it I did 
not know. I should have asked for further explanation 
—for the manner of this man was so frank and so friend- 
ly that it invited a cordial familiarity — but as I was 
about to speak we passed through the narrow opening 
in a wall of unusual height and strength, and so came 
into a charming garden, in the midst of which stood a 
large house well built of stone. For the making of this 
garden a natural nook on the side of the mountain had 
been enlarged by filling in along its outer edge against a 
great retaining-wall, built up from a depth of a hundred 
feet from the slope below; and on the farther side of 
the plateau thus created, where the path down into the 
valley went on again, were heavy defensive walls. Near 
this exit, also, was a long low building that I took to 
be a guard-house. 

The crowd that had followed behind us from the 
height above went on across the plateau, and out 
through the gate beside the guard-house—its mem- 
bers casting many curious looks at us as they departed 
—and the guardsmen who had formed our escort, at 
an order from Tizoc, went on to their quarters. But 
Tizoc led us across the garden to the large house that 
stood in the midst of it, and there, with a formal courte- 
sy, bade us enter. This was his home, he said, and we 
were his welcome guests. 

The house was so like the houses ordinarily found in 


212 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


Mexico that we had no feeling of strangeness in enter: 
ing it. It was built of stone neatly laid in cement; was 
but a single story in height, and enclosed a large cen- 
tral court, in the midst of which a fountain sparkled, sur- 
rounded by small trees and shrubs and beds of flowers. 
All of the rooms opened upon this central court, and 
in the outer wall the only opening was the narrow way 
by which we had entered—for the prompt closing of 
which there lay in readiness a pile of metal bars. The 
flat roof, also of stone, was reached by a stone stair-way 
from the court, and had about it a heavy stone parapet 
that was pierced with narrow slits through which jave- 
lins and arrows could be discharged. But these ar- 
rangements for defence did not by any means produce 
a gloomy effect, as they would had we encountered 
them in a country-house in our own part of the world 
—for similar defensive arrangements are found in ev- 
ery hacienda in Mexico at the present day, and even 
I, though my stay in the country had been so short, al- 
ready had become accustomed to them. 

A buzzing chatter of talk, in which women’s voices 
predominated, ceased suddenly as we entered the court; 
and from the swaying and twitching of the curtains 
hanging in the front of the openings leading into sev- 
eral of the rooms, we inferred that we were undergoing 
a keen inspection. In response to a call from Tizoc, 
gome men-servants came out from one of the rooms 
and received his order to prepare food for us; and he 
then led us to a large room in a corner of the court 
that was arranged very delightfully as a bath. Here 
was a great stone tank, twenty feet or so square, and 


THE STRIKING OF A MATCH. Sts 


with a slanting bottom, so that the depth of it ranged 
from two feet to nearly five, in which was fresh run- 
ning water; and over the portion of the room that the 
tank occupied there was no roof but the bright blue 
sky. On the stone floor were beautifully woven mats, 
and towels of cotton cloth hung upon pegs driven into 
the walls, and in earthen bowls were fresh pieces of 
a saponaceous root that I have seen the like of in 
use among the Indians of New Mexico. It seemed to 
strike Tizoc as odd that we preferred to make use of 
the bath successively rather than all together; but he 
was too polite a man to interpose any objections to our 
eccentricities. Pablo only—coming last of all of us— 
had a companion in his bathing in the person of El 
Sabio; and the sleekness of that excellent animal, when 
Pablo had brushed carefully his long coat when his 
bath was ended, was a wonder to behold. 

Being thus refreshed, we heartily welcomed the ex- 
cellent meal that was served to us in the cool shade of 
the veranda by which the court-yard was surrounded. 
Our eating was somewhat in the Roman fashion, for 
the table was a broad slab of stone, raised but a little 
from the ground, and around it we reclined upon mats, 
with cushions woven of rushes to lean upon. The food 
was excellent—a small animal of the deer species, but 
no larger than a hare, roasted whole; birds very like 
quails, delicately broiled ; little cakes made of maize, 
which were rather like the hoe-cakes of our Southern 
negroes than fortillas; some sort of sweet marmalade; 
and a great abundance of oranges, mangoes, bananas, 
and other fruits common to the hot lands of Mexico; 


214 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


all of which fruits were much more delicate in flavor 
than Mexican fruits usually are; the result, as we found 
later, of the great care bestowed upon their culture. 
Only water was served with the meal, but at the end 
of it a small jar of some sort of potent liquor was 
brought, very cool, and with an excellent spicy taste, 
that Tizoc warned us must be taken but sparingly ; 
and truly he was right, as I found from the warm and 
mellow feeling of benevolent friendliness that but half 
a cup of it infused into me. Tizoc himself did not fol- 
low very rigidly the advice that he had given us; and 
to this fact, probably, was due the exceeding frankness 
with which he subsequently spoke with us concern- 
ing grave matters, of which he surely would have been 
reticent had he been in a less genial mood. 

“ Just ask th’ Colonel if he minds my smokin’ a 
pipe, won’t you, Professor?” Young said, when our 
meal was ended; and as I myself wanted to smoke, 
and as I was sure that Rayburn did also, I made the 
request general. Tizoc, to my surprise—for I believed 
smoking to be common to all the indigenous races— 
evidently did not at all understand my meaning; but 
perceiving that I asked to have some favor granted, he 
courteously gave the permission that I desired. As we 
filled our pipes he watched us curiously; but when we 
drew out our matches and struck fire by what seemed 
to him but the turn of our hands, he started to his feet 
and manifested a strange excitement, in which there 
seemed to be less of alarm than of awe. His voice 
shook, and his whole person trembled, as he asked, 
“ Are ye the children of Chac-Mool, the God of Fire, 


THE STRIKING OF A MATCH. 215 


and therefore the chosen servants of Huitzilopochtli 
the Terrible, that ye thus can do what among us is 
done only by our Priest Captain Itzacoatl ?” 

Both Fray Antonio and I heard with delight this 
utterance, that in a moment settled the long-disputed 
question. as to whether or not Chac-Mool was an idol, 
and settled it, also, in favor of the ingenious hypothesis 
presented by the learned Sefior Chavero. The moment 
was not a favorable one, however, for pursuing the 
matter in its archzological bearings, for all of our tact 
and skill just then were required to restore Tizoc to 
calmness. As well as this was possible in the language 
common to us—and we suddenly realized how difficult 
it was to express in the Nahua tongue more than rudi- 
mentary concepts of the ideas that we sought to con- 
vey—we explained to him how matches were made; 
and illustrated our words by showing him how fire 
was induced by friction, even as the rubbing of two 
pieces of wood together produced fire also. This ex- 
planation was less exact than ingenious; but it was 
one that he could understand, and it had the effect of 
allaying his alarm sufficiently to permit him to resume 
his seat, when he at once drank off a whole bowlful of 
the strong, spicy liquor at a draught. Added to what he 
already had inside of him, this draught set his tongue 
to wagging in the free way that I have already referred 
to, and he grew bold enough to take a match in his 
hand. But even in his cups he manifested a certain 
reverence in his handling of it; and presently, from a 
little bag that was hung about his neck, he produced 
the burnt remnant of a match that he compared with it 


216 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


critically. ‘They are the same?” he asked, as he ex- 
tended the whole match and the fragment together 
towards us that we might examine them. 

“They are the same,” Fray Antonio answered. 
“ Whence comes the one that you guard so carefully ?” 

“From the Priest Captain—from Itzacoatl. With 
such things does he miraculously set burning the fire 
of sacrifice ; but he does not speak of them lightly, as 
you do; he tells us that they are the handiwork of the 
Fire God, Chac-Mool ; and when the fire of sacrifice is 
kindled he gives what remains of them as high rewards 
to those who have served well the State by brave acts 
or honorable deeds. This which I cherish was my re- 
ward for crushing a revolt among the Tlahuicos,” 

Fray Antonio and I exchanged curious glances, 
for the conviction was forced upon us both that the 
Priest Captain of whom Tizoc spoke must either have 
invented friction matches, or that he must have some 
secret channel of communication with the outside 
world. In either case it was evident that he must be 
a man of unusual shrewdness ; and it also was evident 
that his feeling towards us—since we also could per- 
form a miracle that he obviously made use of as a 
means of manifesting his divine right to rule—must 
be that of strong hostility. 

To Rayburn and Young, who had observed won- 
deringly Tizoc’s extraordinary conduct, I rapidly trans- 
lated what he had said; and explained how serious 
our situation appeared in the light of this new devel- 
opment. 

“Well, it certainly 7s cold weather for this Priest 


THE STRIKING OF A MATCH. 217 


Captain fellow,” Young commented, “if we’ve got 
hold of his boss miracle; and I guess you’re about 
right, Professor—he’ll want t’ take it out of our 
hides. Just poke up th’ Colonel t’ telling all he 
knows about this old dodger. Th’ Colonel’s got his 
tongue pretty well greased just now with his own 
prime old Bourbon—pass me that jar, Rayburn, I 
don’t mind if I have another whack at it myself—and 
we may get something out of him that will be useful. 
Try it on, Professor, any way. Here’s luck, gentle- 
men.” 

That Young’s tongue also was a little greased, as he 
put it, by this very agreeable beverage was quite evi- 
dent; but his wits were sharpened rather than dulled 
_by the drink, and his present suggestion evidently was 
avery good one. As for Tizoc, his disposition tow- 
ards us obviously was most soft and friendly ; and as 
his mind slowly absorbed the fact that, somehow or 
another, the Priest Captain had made a fool of him 
with a miracle that was not really a miracle at all, his 
choler rose in a manner most favorable to our purposes. 
Yet this very feeling of resentful anger—showing a 
growing irreverence of one to whom all the traditions 
of his people gave reverence second only to that due 
to the gods themselves—was startling evidence of the 
menace that our presence was to the theocratic ruler’s 
' temporal and spiritual power. Therefore it was with 
a keen curiosity that we listened—and Tizoc needed, 
to induce him to talk freely, but little of the poking-up 
that Young had suggested—to what was told us con- 
cerning the strange people among whom we had come 


218 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


by ways so perilous, and of their chieftain, the Priest 
Captain Itzacoatl—with whom, as no spirit of proph- 
ecy was needed to tell us, we were destined soon to 
engage in a conflict that must be fought out to the 
very death. 


XIX. 
THE SEEDS OF REVOLT. 


For the sake of brevity I shall summarize here the 
statement that Tizoc made to us, and for the sake of 
clearness I shall add to it some facts of minor impor- 
tance which came to our knowledge later—thus at 
once exhibiting the whole of the troublous condition 
of affairs that stirred dangerously the people dwell- 
ing in the Valley of Aztlan at the time of our coming 
among them. 

At this period the political situation, as I may term 
it, was exceedingly critical. Three powerful factions 
were in existence ; and peace was preserved only by 
the generally diffused belief that open revolt, on the 
part of either one, would be crushed instantly by a 
temporary coalition of the other two. The beginning 
of this unpleasantly volcanic condition of affairs dated 
back six cycles—that is to say, a little more than three 
hundred years—and was the direct result of a viola- 
tion of the law set forth by the wise King Chaltzant- 
zin when the colony was founded, by which it was or- 
dained that all among the Aztlanecas who, on coming 


THE SEEDS OF REVOLT. 219 


to maturity, were weaklings or cripples, should be put 
to death. 

Being once suggested, the repeal or the modifica- 
tion of this law found many advocates. Naturally, the 
change was urged most strongly by all those whose 
sons and daughters were sickly or malformed, and so 
were doomed to die in the very blossom of their years. 
It was urged by the nobles because the more astute 
among them perceived the possibility of so manipu- 
lating it that it would result in the creation of a dis- 
tinctively servile class; and the priests urged it be- 
cause they also perceived a way by which it might be 
made to provide more victims for sacrifice to the gods. 
And so it came to pass, through the influence of these 
diverse elements operating together towards a common 
end, that the law which Chaltzantzin had promulgat- 
ed was set aside, and a law was made that embodied 
the provisions demanded by the nobles and the priests, 
whereby should be created a new social class ; which 
class, because of the infirmities of those composing it, 
received the name of Tlahuicos—“ men turned towards 
the earth.” Thereafter, the sickly and the crippled 
were not slain upon reaching maturity, but then passed 
out from the class into which they were born and be- 
came servitors. And when the first cycle was ended 
after the making of this new law, and thenceforward 
every year, one in every ten among the Tlahuicos was 
taken by lot to be sacrificed to the gods—for the priests 
craftily had gained the barbarous concession that they 
demanded by placing the first fulfilment of it at a time 
so far in the future that all concerned in the granting 


220 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


of it would be dead in the course of nature before it 
became operative. Yet to the end that those of noble 
birth might be saved from the ignominy of servitude, 
it was provided that children which by reason of nat- 
ural infirmity were doomed to become slaves, might 
be saved from that fate upon coming to maturity by 
being then surrendered by their parents to the priests 
for sacrifice. Other grace there wasnone. Excepting 
between death and slavery, there was no choice for the 
weak or the malformed. 

As time passed on, the Tlahuicos, marrying among 
themselves, had greatly increased in numbers; and so 
far from remaining a weakling race, they had become, 
by reason of their frugal mode of living and of the 
wholesome, hearty labor in which they constantly 
were engaged, exceptionally hale and strong; the weak 
and crippled among them being mainly those who 
each year, because of such infirmities, were added to 
their number from the higher ranks of the community. 
And thus was collected together material as danger- 
ous as it was inflammable; for the fresh additions to 
the Tlahuicos kept constantly alive in the whole body 
a spirit of moody discontent, that time and again, at 
the season when the lots were cast by which one in 
every ten was doomed to death, was fanned into armed 
mutiny. These revolts ever had as their single ob- 
ject escape from the valley ; which fact made evident 
enough the need for the elaborate system of defensive 
works by which the outlet of the valley was barred. 

From the Tlahuicos were drawn the house-servants 
of the rich; and by those of this wretched class whe 


THE SHEDS OF REVOLT. 231 


were stout of body all the heavy labor of the commu- 
nity was carried on—the tilling of the fields, the quar- 
rying of stone, the building of houses and bridges and 
roads, the felling of timber, the carriage of all bur- 
dens, and the working of the great gold-mine, concern- 
ing which I shall hereafter have more to tell. And 
all of these people were held in absolute bondage, ei- 
ther as the serfs of individual owners or as the prop- 
erty of the State; for each year the new accessions to 
the class were sold publicly at an auction to whoever 
would bid the most for them; and those which none 
would buy, being too infirm to be useful as laborers, 
the State laid claim to—but only that they might be 
kept alive until such time as they should be needed by 
the priests for sacrifice. 

Yet out of this custom of sale, that on the face of 
it was harsh and barbarous, some slight mitigation of 
the cruelty of the system had come; for the practice 
had grown up of permitting parents to buy back their 
own children— nominally thereafter holding them as 
slaves—and so to save them at a single stroke from 
both death and servitude. One strong cause of the 
hatred of the Priest Captain Itzacoatl, Tizoc said (and 
we wondered then at the trembling in his voice, and 
at the evidently deep emotion that overcame him as 
he spoke), was that he had but lately forbidden the 
continuance of this practice, by which only the letter 
of the law was obeyed. 

Until the promulgation by the Priest Captain of 
this decree, the priesthood, the military aristocracy, 
and the mass of the army had constituted. politically, 


222 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


one single class. The civil government was vested in 
a body styled the Council of the Twenty Lords, the 
members of which originally had been chosen by 
Chaltzantzin, and from him had received authority, 
in perpetuity, to fill the vacancies which death would 
cause among them by selecting the wisest of each 
new generation to be Councillors. While the compo- 
sition of this body was distinctively aristocratic—for 
its members were either military nobles or priests of a 
high grade—there was in it also an element of democ- 
racy; for both the priesthood and the army were re- 
cruited from all classes of society (saving only the ser- 
vile class), and among the Twenty Lords there were 
always men who had risen from obscurity to distinc- 
tion solely by their own merit. Over this body the 
Priest Captain presided ; yet was his will superior to 
that of the Council, for he was the visible representa- 
tive of the gods, and so centred in his own person their 
high authority and dreadful power. 

Until the time of Itzacoatl, each successive priest 
captain, in the long line that here had ruled, had exer- 
cised so discreetly his theocratic rights, and in all ways 
had shown such wisdom in his government, that no 
conflict had arisen between the temporal and the spir- 
itual powers. And thus wisely had Itzacoatl govern- 
ed in the early years of his reign. But as age stole 
upon him—and he now was a very old man—his rule 
had grown more and more tyrannical. He had drawn 
about him certain priests for intimate advisers, and 
these constantly led him to run counter to the will of 
the Twenty Lords, not only in matters about which 


THE SEEDS OF REVOLT. 293 


divergent opinions reasonably might be held, but in 
matters wherein the will of the whole people was at 
one with the advice that the Council gave. Thus, 
gradually, two parties were built up within the State: 
that of the priests, which strongly seconded the dispo- 
sition that Itzacoatl manifested to make the spiritual 
power absolutely supreme, and that of the nobles and 
people of the higher class, which sought to maintain 
the Council’s ancient rights in matters temporal. In 
regard to these two factions, the affiliations of the 
army were so nicely balanced that neither side vent- 
ured to resort to open violence—for each dreaded that 
the other would turn the scale against it by invoking 
the aid of the servile class. Thus it was that the de- 
spised Tlahuicos actually held the balance of power. 
Yet of this fact, Tizoc declared—but I noticed that 
just here there was a curious hesitancy about his 
speech, as though he knew more than he was willing 
to disclose—the Tlahuicos were but dimly conscious ; 
while they did know certainly that in the present state 
of affairs any attempt on their part to rise in mutiny 
would be met, as it had been met many times in the 
past, by all the forces of both factions of their superi- 
ors overwhelmingly united against them. 

But the bond that was stronger than all others in 
holding together this community, in which, beneath the 
surface, were working such potent elements of disinte- 
gration, was the loyal resolve pervading it to execute the 
mission to which its members were destined when they 
were set apart from the remainder of their race a thou- 
sand years before. Excepting only among the Tlahu- 


924 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


icos—who, in the nature of things, could have no share 
in it—there had ever been among all classes a fervent 
longing for the summons that should call them forth 
to aid their brethren in the battling with a foreign foe 
that Chaltzantzin had prophesied. . And by reason of 
this loyalty to a lofty purpose the open rupture that 
assuredly otherwise would have come had been thus 
far restrained. Honor forbade, Tizoc declared, that by 
falling to warring among themselves they should put 
in jeopardy their power to respond instantly to the 
summons that might at any instant come. 

It was therefore with a profound and solemn interest 
—for the grave import of it was plain to him—that Ti- 
zoc, having ended his own statement, questioned us as 
to the full meaning of the words which we had spoken 
when first we entered the valley: that the prophecy of 
Chaltzantzin long since had been fulfilled, and that 
now, having in its appointed time miscarried, the sum- 
mons would never come. 

With awe, and in sorrowful silence, he listened as 
Fray Antonio and I told him how exactly the proph- 
ecy had been verified by the coming of the Spaniards, 
and by their conquest and enslavement of the Mexi- 
cans; yet was he cheered again as our narrative con- 
tinued, and he learned of the brave fight for freedom 
that his brethren had made, and of the happy success 
that had crowned it in the end. Of the period between 
the achievement of independence and recent years we 
said but little—it is not a period of which those whose 
feeling towards the Mexicans is friendly have much 
desire to talk—contenting ourselves with emphasizing 


THE SEEDS OF REVOLT. 225 


the fact that the race so long oppressed, having risen 
successfully against its oppressors, remained indepen- 
dent under a ruler of its own blood. 

To that part of our narrative in which we told how 
_we had gained knowledge of the hidden city of Col. 
huacan, and possession of the token of summons, [izoc 
gave but little heed. It was evident that his mind was 
engrossed with consideration of the more important 
matters of which we had told him, and of the direct 
bearing that they had upon the troubled condition of 
affairs in which his own people were involved. Seeing 
which, we left him to his own thoughts while we talked 
of these same matters among ourselves. 

Rayburn, in his quick, clear-headed way, grasped the 
situation promptly and accurately. “About the size 
of it is,” he said, “that we’ve knocked the false work 
right from under everything that these folks have been 
building for the whole thousand years that they have 
been living here; and what they’ve built isn’t strong 
enough to stand alone. As Young says, it’s acold day 
for the Priest Captain because we have got hold of his 
boss miracle ; but it’s still colder weather for him be- 
cause the news that we have brought makes it all right 
for the crowd that wants to fight him to go right ahead 
and do it; and I guess they will do it, too, as soon as 
they get the fact fairly into their heads that there no 
longer is a chance of their being called off in the mid- 
dle of their row. Unless I am very much mistaken, 
we shall see some pretty lively times in this valley in- 
side of the next thirty days.” 

“And unless J’m mistaken,” Young struck in, “ th’ 

15 


226 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


Colonel here will be about th’ first man t’ take off his 
coat—that is, th’ thing that I suppose he thinks is a 
coat—an’ sail in. I don’t know just what he’s got 
against th’ Priest Captain, except that he seems t’ be 
a sort of pill on. gen’ral principles, but ’m sure that 
he’s down on him from th’ word go. From what th’ 
Colonel says, I judge that his crowd has a pretty good 
chance of comin’ out on top—for th’ other crowd 
seems t’ be made up for th’ most part of parsons ; an’ 
parsons, as a rule, haven’t much fight in’em. What 
we'd better do is t’ tie t’? th’ Colonel, an’ when we’ve 
helped him an’ his friends t’ wallop th’ other fellows 
they’ll be so much obliged to us that they’ll let us bag 
all th’ treasure we want an’ clear out. An’ that re- 
minds me, Professor—we haven’t heard anything about 
any treasure so far. Just ask th’ Colonel if there real- 
ly is one. If there isn’t, I vote for pullin’ out before 
th’ row begins. It’s as true of a fight as it is of a rail- 
road—that runnin’ it just for th’ operatin’ expenses 
don’t pay. 

Tizoc answered my question on this head somewhat 
absently, for he evidently was debating within himself 
some very serious matter ; but his answer was of a sort 
that Young found entirely satisfactory. In the heart 
of the city, he said, was the Treasure-house that Chalt- 
zantzin had builded there; and within it the treasure 
remained that Chaltzantzin had stored away. What 
it consisted of, nor the value of it, he could not tell 
The Treasure-house was also the Great Temple; and 
of the treasure only the Priest Captain had accurate 
knowledge. In the Treasure-house, Tizoc added, was 


THE SEEDS OF REVOLT. 227 


stored the tribute that the people paid annually, and 
the metal that was taken from the great mine. This 
metal was the most precious of all their possessions, he 
said, for from it their arms were made, and also their 
tools for tilling the earth, and for working wood and 
stone. It had not always been of such value, for it 
naturally was too soft to serve these useful purposes; 
but at a remote period, until which time their imple- . 
ments had been made of stone, a wise man among them 
had discovered a way by which it could be hardened, 
and from that time onward the people dwelling in the 
valley had prospered greatly, because they thus were 
enabled to practise all manner of useful arts. 

‘And what is this metal like ?” I asked, with much 
interest, for my archeological instinct instantly was 
aroused by hearing summed in these few words a mat- 
ter of such momentous importance as the transition of 
a people to the age of metal from the age of stone. 

Tt is like this,” Tizoc answered, simply, disengaging 
as he spoke a heavy bracelet from his arm, “ only this 
remains in its natural state of softness. To be of great 
value it first must be made hard.” 

I had no doubt in my own mind as to what this 
metal was, but I knew that Rayburn, who was an ex- 
cellent metallurgist, could pronounce upon it authori- 
tatively. 

“Ts this gold ?” I asked, handing him the bracelet. 

“ Certainly it is,” he answered, in a moment—“ and 
it seems to be entirely without alloy.” 

“Then your guess about the bright, hard metal that 
has been such a puzzle to us,” I continued, “ was the 


228 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


right one; it is hardened gold:” and I repeated to 
him what Tizoc had told me. 

Rayburn was deeply interested. “ Scientifically, this 
is a big thing, Professor,” he said. ‘‘ These fellows 
can give points to our metallurgists. But for our pur- 
poses, of course, what they’ve caught on to here has 
ho practical value. Gold has got to come down a 
good deal, or phosphor-bronze has got to go up a good 
deal, before it will pay us to turn gold dollars into 
_ axle-bearings and cogs and pinions. But it’s mighty 
interesting, all the same. Fusing with silicium would 
give a gold-silicide that might fill the bill for hard- 
ness; but I can’t even make a guess as to how they do 
the tempering. Ask the Colonel what the whole proc- 
ess is, Professor. It will make a capital paper to read 
before the Institute of Mining Engineers at their next 
meeting.” 

As I turned to Tizoc to ask this question, I per- 
ceived that his regard was fixed upon something on 
the other side of the court-yard, and in his look most 
tender love was blended with a deep melancholy. 
Following the direction of his gaze, I saw that its ob- 
ject was a beautiful boy, a lad of twelve or fourteen 
years old, who was half hidden behind some flowering 
shrubs, and from this cover was peering at us curi- 
ously. 

“Tt is my Maza—vmy little son,” Tizoc said, as he 
turned and saw the direction in which I looked. And 
then he called to the boy to come to him. For a mo- 
ment Maza hesitated, but when the call was repeated 
he came out from behind the screen of flowers and so 


THE PRIEST CAPTAIN’S SUMMONS. 229 


towards us across the court-yard ; and as he advanced 
I perceived that he was lame. In his face was the 
look of wistfulness which cripples so often have, and 
there was a rare sweetness and intelligence in the ex- 
pression of his large brown eyes. In a moment I un- 
derstood why it was that Tizoc resented so bitterly 
the abrogation by the Priest Captain of the custom 
that had permitted parents to buy back their crippled 
children, and so to save them from slavery; and a self- 
ish feeling of gladness came into my heart as this light 
dawned upon me—for I knew that when we faced the 
danger that threatened us (a most real danger, for our 
coming into the valley was nothing less than a deadly 
blow at Itzacoatl’s supremacy) we surely would find in 
Tizoc an ally and a friend. 


XX. 


THE PRIEST CAPTAIN’S SUMMONS. 


THERE was so much meaning in my look as I turned 
towards Tizoc that I had no need to speak; he knew 
that I had comprehended the situation, and so answer- 
ed my look in words. 

“Do you wonder that I rejoice over your coming, 
and over the news which you bring? The will of the 
gods no longer is that we shall do the work for which 
our lord Chaltzantzin destined us; therefore are we 
free to set aside the custom that he decreed by which 
our weak ones are condemned to death, and with it the 


230 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


custom, yet more cruel, of our own devising, by which 
they are saved from death only that they may be made 
slaves. ‘l'o my boy neither slavery nor death shall come. 
Through you the gods have spoken, and he is saved. 
And now also is fulfilled the prophecy that of ancient 
times was spoken, that with the coming into the Val- 
ley of Aztlan of a four-footed beast, bearing upon its 
back a man, the power of the Priest Captain should 
end.” 

Much more, doubtless, Tizoc would have said to us, 
for an exalted emotion stirred him; but at that mo- 
ment there was the sound of hurrying feet in the outer 
enclosure, and then Tizoc’s secretary came through the 
narrow entrance into the court-yard, followed closely 
by a detachment of the guards. The secretary spoke 
hurriedly to his master, apart from us, and from his ex- 
cited manner in speaking, and from the anxious look 
upon his master’s face as he listened, we inferred that 
some very stirring matter was involved in the com- 
munication that he brought. 

For a few moments Tizoc stood in silence, his head 
bowed, as though engaged in earnest thought. Then 
he turned to us and spoke. ‘‘The Priest Captain has 
sent his order that you shall be brought before him,” he 
said, “and that you must go hence without delay.” And 
then he added, taking me aside and speaking in a low 
voice: “ There is great commotion already in the city, 
for the soldiers have noised abroad the news which 
you bring. The Council of the Twenty Lords has been 
called together, and I am told that a messenger from 
the Council is on his way hither. That my order to take 


THE PRIEST CAPTAIN’S SUMMONS. 93} 


you to the city in such haste, and directly to the Priest 
Captain, is so stringent, I cannot but think is caused 
by his desire to get you hence before the messenger 
from the Council shall arrive. His purpose towards 
you surely is an evil one; but fear not—you bring a 
message of freedom and deliverance that has only to be 
published to raise around you a host of friends. And 
now we must go.” 

In a few moments we had quitted Tizoc’s house, pass- 
ed out through the fortified gate-way in the heavy wall 
by which the little plateau on the mountain side was de- 
fended; and so, by a broad road that descended sharp- 
ly, went downward towards the border of the lake. 
Our order of march was the same as that adopted in 
bringing us from the Barred Pass: before us and be- 
hind us were detachments of the guards, and Tizoc 
walked with us. In accordance with his desire, that 
he expressed to me in a cautious whisper, Pablo rode 
upon El Sabio’s back. There was no need for him to 
explain his motive in making this suggestion. It was 
his purpose, evidently, to exhibit the fulfilment of the 
prophecy as conspicuously as possible, and so to prepare 
the ground for the sowing of the seeds of revolt. 

T had an opportunity now to tell Rayburn and Young 
of what Tizoc had been speaking at the moment when 
the summons from the Priest Captain came; and also 
of the strong personal reason that he had for protect- 
ing us, even to the extent of forwarding the outbreak 
of revolution, in his desire to save from death or sla. 
very the son whom he so well loved. 

“Tm not at all surprised to hear that what we’ve 


232 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


told ’em is going to start a revolution,” Rayburn said. 
“ That’s just the way I sized the matter up, you know, 
as soon as I got down to the first facts. If they’d had 
a decent sort of a fellow at the head of things, they 
might have worked along so as to take a fresh start 
without fighting overit. But this Priest Captain chap 
isn’t that kind. He goes in for Boss management and 
machine politics, I should judge from what the Colonel 
says, as straight as if he was a New York alderman or 
the chairman of a State campaign committee in Ohio. 
No doubt he’s got a pretty big crowd back of him ; 
but that kind of a crowd don’t amount to much in a 
fight, when there’s any sort of a show for the other 
side to win. It sort of gets out of the way, and stands 
around with water on both shoulders, and then, when 
one side begins to get pretty well on top—it don’t 
matter which —it says that that’s the side it’s been 
fighting with all along, and begins to kick the fellows 
that are down. Where our chance comes in is in hay- 
ing the respectable element, the solid men who pay 
taxes and have an interest in decent government, to 
tie to. ‘They may not pay taxes here, but that’s the 
kind I mean. And that kind, when it takes to fight- 
ing, fights hard. Then there must be a lot of fathers 
with crippled children, like the Colonel here, who are 
down on the Priest Captain the worst kind, and will be 
only too glad of a chance to go for him; and they can 
be counted on to stand in with us, and to fight harder 
than anybody. I'll admit, Professor, that we’re in a 
pretty tight place; but it might be a good deal tighter, 
and I do honestly believe that we’ll get out of it.” 


THE PRIEST CAPTAIN’S SUMMONS. 233 


“And so do I,” said Young, “’specially now that I 
know that that burro of Pablo’s is part of a prophecy. 
I always did think that there was style about El Sabio, 
any way, an’ now I know what it comes from. When I 
was 2 boy, th’ one thing that used t’ keep me quiet in 
church was hearin’ our minister read that story about 
Balaam and fis burro; but I never thought then that I’d 
actually ketch up with a live ass that was in the proph- 
esyin’ line of business for itself —or had prophecies 
made about it, which is pretty much the same thing. 
T’ be sure, this prophecy don’t come down t’ dots 
quite as much as I’d like it to; but I s’pose that that’s 
th’ way with ’em always—eh, Professor? Th’ proph- 
ets sort o’ leave things at loose ends on purpose; s0’s 
they can run ‘ wild’ on a clear track, without any bother 
about schedule time or connections.” 

“Well, our burro lays over Balaam’s,” Rayburn 
struck in. “In that case it took the combined argu- 
ments of an ass and an angel to convince Balaam that 
he was off about his location, and was running his 
lines all wrong; but, unless we count in Pablo, El Sabio 
is playing a lone hand; and I’m sure that the Colonel’s 
not fooling us about this prophecy business, either. It’s 
rubbish, of course; but that don’t matter, so long as 
the people here swallow it for the genuine thing. Just 
look at that old fellow there. He’s tumbled to it, and 
he’s regularly knocked out.” 

We were close to the shore of the lake by this time, 
and as Rayburn spoke we were passing a small house, 
in front of which was gathered a group of Indians. In 
the midst of the group was a very old man, who with 


234 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


out-stretched arm was pointing towards Pablo and El 
Sabio, and who at the same time was talking to his 
companions in grave and earnest tones. There was a 
look of awe upon his age-worn face, and as we fairly 
came abreast of him he dropped upon his knees and 
raised his arms above his head, as though in supplica- 
tion to some higher power. The action, truly, was a 
most impressive one; and even more strongly than we 
were affected by it did it affect those who were clus- 
tered around him. In a moment all in the group had 
fallen upon their knees and had raised their arms up- 
ward; and then a low moaning, that presently grew 
louder and more thrilling, broke forth among them as 
they gave vent to the feeling of awful dread that was 
in their hearts. 

“'That’s business, that is,’ Young said, in tones of 
great satisfaction. ‘‘Those fellows do believe in th’ 
prophecy, for a fact; and if th’ folks once get it fairly 
into their heads that th’ time has come for their ras- 
cally Priest Captain t’ have an upset, that’s a good 
long start for our side towards upsettin’ him. It was 
just everlastin’ly level-headed in th’ Colonel t’ make 
Pablo ride El Sabio, and so regularly cram th’ thing 
down these critters’ throats. I don’t know how much 
of th’ prophecy he believes himself, but he’s workin’ 
it for all it’s worth, any way. ‘There don’t seem t’ be 
any flies worth speakin’ of on th’ Colonel—eh, Pro- 
fessor? And I guess that anybody who wants t’ get 
up earlier ’n th’ mornin’ than he does ’ll have to make 
a start overnight.” 

By this time the road that we followed had come 


THE PRIEST CAPTAIN’S SUMMONS. 235 


down to the lake-level, and presently we reached the 
end of it, which was a well-built pier that extended 
out from the shelving shore into deep water. Here a 
boat was in waiting for us—a barge of near forty feet 
in length, with twenty men to row it, and carrying also 
a mast, stepped well forward, so rigged as to spread a 
sail that was a compromise between a lug anda lateen. 
There was some little talk between the officer in charge 
of the barge and Tizoc, and then the latter motioned 
us to go on board. The barge-master gave the order 
to the guard to follow us, as though the command of 
the party now had devolved upon him; and it seemed 
to us, from the close group that the guard made around 
us in the boat, and from the anxious looks which the 
barge-master cast upon us, that very strict orders must 
have been given concerning keeping us closely in ward. 
Under these circumstances, it caused us some little 
wonder that we were permitted to retain our arms, 
until the thought occurred to me that these people, 
having no knowledge of such things, did not at all 
realize that our rifles and revolvers were arms at all. 
To test which theory I drew one of my pistols —not 
violently, but as though this were something that I was 
doing for my own convenience—and so held it in my 
hands that the muzzle was pointed directly at the heart 
of the soldier who sat beside me; yet beyond the in- 
terest that its odd shape, and the strange metal that it 
was made of aroused in him, it was evident that the 
man regarded my action entirely without concern. I 
drew the attention of Rayburn and Young to what I 
was doing, and to how evident it was that fire-arms 


236 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


were unknown to this people; and in their ignorance 
we found much cause for satisfaction. 

“Tf they don’t know enough to corral our guns,” 
Young said, ‘“‘we’ve got a pretty good-sized piece of 
dead-wood on’em. Th’ way things are goin’, we may 
have a rumpus a’most any time, I s’pose; and if it does 
come to a rumpus, they’ll be a badly struck lot when 
we open on’em. Robinson Crusoe cleaned out a whole 
outfit of Indians with just an old flint-lock musket; 
and I should say that we’d simply paralyze this crowd 
when we all get goin’ at once with our revolvers an’ 
Winchesters. Isn’t that your idea of it, Rayburn ?” 

But Rayburn did not answer, for while Young was 
speaking he had taken out his field-glass and was ex- 
amining the city, to within three or four miles of which 
we now were come. ‘ Well, that 2s a walled city, and 
no mistake!” he said, as he lowered the glass from his 
eyes. “'Take a look, Professor. These people may be 
easy to fool when it comes to propheciés, but when it 
comes to engineering and architecture they’re sound 
all the way through. Just look at the straightness of 
that wall running up the hill, and how exact the align- 
ment is of the two parts above and below that ledge of 
rocks, They had to get that alignment, you know, by 
taking fore-sights and back-sights from the top of the 
ledge; and I must say that for people who haven’t got 
far enough along in civilization to wear trousers, it’s 
an uncommonly pretty piece of work.” 

As I looked through the glass I was less impressed 
by this technical detail, involving the overcoming of 
engineering difficulties which I did not very thoroughly 


THE PRIEST CAPTAIN’S SUMMONS. 237 


anderstand, than I was by the majestic effect produced 
by the city as a whole, in conjunction with the site on 
which it was reared. At this point the lake came close 
up to the vastly high cliffs by which the valley every- 
where was girt in, and here jutted out from the cliff a 
great promontory of rock, whereof the highest part was 
fully two hundred feet above the lake-level. For the 
accommodation of the houses which everywhere were 
built upon it, the sloping face of this promontory had 
been cut into broad terraces, of which the facings were 
massive walls of stone; and the whole was enclosed by 
a wall of great height and enormous thickness that 
swept out in an immense semicircle from the face of 
the cliff, and thus shut in the terraced promontory and 
also a considerable area of level land at the base of it 
between the lowest terrace and the margin of the lake. 

On the highest terrace, crowning and dominating 
the whole, was a majestic building that seemed to be 
half temple and half fort—a square structure, resting 
solidly against the face of the cliff, and thence project- 
ing a long way outward to where its fagade was fiank- 
ed by two low, heavy, square towers. Architecturally, 
this building, unlike any other of which I had knowl- 
edge in Mexico, saving only the temple that we had 
found upon the lonely mountain-top, was pervaded by 
a distinctly Egyptian sentiment. Its walls sloped in- 
ward from their bases, and no trivial nor fretful lines 
weakened the effect of their massive dignity; for the 
whole of the decoration upon them was a broad panel- 
ling that was gained by a combination of heavy pilas- 
ters and a heavy cornice; and with the exception of 


238 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


a central entrance, the front was unbroken by openings 
of any kind. Possessing these characteristics, the build- 
ing had about it an air of solemnity that bordered 
closely upon gloom; and the obvious solidity of its 
construction was such that it seemed destined to last 
on through all coming ages in defiance of the assaults 
of time. There was no need for me to question Tizoc; 
for I knew that what I beheld before me, crowning 
with sombre grandeur this strange city, girded with 
such prodigious walls, was the Treasure-house that 
Chaltzantzin, the Aztec King, had builded in the dim 
dawning of a most ancient past. 

Young took his turn in looking through the glass, 
and as he handed it to Fray Antonio he said: “If at 
any time in th’ course o’ th’ past few weeks, Pro- 
fessor, you’ve got th’ notion from any o’ my talk that 
I thought that dead friend o’ yours, th’ old monk, was 
a liar, I want t’? take it all back; and I want t’ take 
back all that I’ve said about that other dead friend 
0’ yours, th’ Cacique, havin’ set up a job on us. ‘It’s 
clear enough now that both o’ your friends played 
an entirely square game. They said that there was a 
walled city, an’ there it is; they said that there was 
a big Treasure- house, an’ there that is. ‘They were 
perfect gentlemen, Professor, and J want t’ set myself 
right on th’ record by sayin’ so. If one of ’em hadn’t 
been dead for more than three months, and if th’ other 
one hadn’t been dead for more than three hundred 
years, and if they both were here, ’'d knuckle under 
and ask ’em t’ take my hat.” 


THE WALLED CITY OF CULHUACAN. 239 


XXI. 


THE WALLED CITY OF CULHUACAN. 


Ovr use in turn of the field-glass was a mysterious 
performance that aroused keenly the barge-master’s . 
curiosity. I heard him ask Tizoc for an explanation 
of it; and Tizoc, who also was much interested, re- 
ferred his question to me. Had I been dealing with 
Tizoc alone I should have tried to make the matter 
clear to him; but in the case of the barge - master, 
whose feeling towards us, I was convinced, was any- 
thing but friendly, I thought it wiser to be less frank. 
Therefore, covering the action with a negligent motion 
of my hand, I screwed the glasses close together, so 
that in looking through them there was to be seen 
only a mass of indistinct objects looming up in a 
blurred cloud of light, and so handed them to him. 
Naturally, neither he nor Tizoc arrived at any very 
satisfactory conclusion in regard to the real use of 
them; and from their talk it was evident that they 
conceived the ceremony in which we had engaged in 
turn so earnestly to be in the nature of a prayer to our 
gods. Fray Antonio was both shocked and pained by 
their taking this view of the matter, and was for mak- 
ing a true explanation to them; but at my urgent re- 
quest he held his peace. Yet it was evident that he 


240 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


brooded over the matter in his mind, and so was led 
to earnest thoughts of the mission that had brought 
him hither into the Valley of Aztlan. Therefore was I 
not surprised—though I certainly was alarmed by the 
thought of what might be its consequences —when 
presently, in low and gentle tones, he began to speak 
to those about him of the free and glorious Christian 
faith, which in all ways was more excellent than the 
cruel idolatry in which they were bound. Naturally, 
he was not permitted long to speak in this strain, for 
the barge-master speedily ordered him in most per- 
emptory tones to keep silence; which order doubtless 
would have been still more quickly given had not the 
officer been fairly surprised by Fray Antonio’s temerity 
into momentary forgetfulness of the dangerous out- 
come of this gentle talk. And Fray Antonio, know- 
ing the value of the word in season that is dropped to 
fructify in soil ready for it, did not attempt argument 
with the barge-master—by which the thoughts of those 
who listened would have been diverted from the hope- 
ful promise of a better faith that he had offered to 
them—but obeyed the order meekly and so held his 
peace. That what he had spoken had taken hold upon 
the hearts of some at least among his hearers I was 
well assured by their grave look of thoughtfulness, 
and especially did Tizoc seem to be deeply moved; 
but—as I supposed for fear of the barge-master—there 
was no open comment upon what had passed. 

By this time, the barge being all the while urged 
rapidly forward by the steady strokes of the twenty 
oarsmen, the city rose so broadly and so openly before 


THE WALLED CITY OF CULHUACAN. 241 


us that we could see the whole of it distinctly with our 
naked eyes. And what at this nearer view seemed 
most. impressive about it was its gloominess; that was 
due not less to the prison-like effect of its heavily 
built houses and its massive walls than to the dull 
blackness of the stone whereof these same were made. 
Nowhere was there sparkle, or glitter, or bright color, 
or brightness of any sort to be seen; and it seemed to 
me, as I gazed upon this sombre stronghold, that dwell- 
ing always within it well enough might wear a man’s 
heart out with a consuming melancholy begotten of its 
cold and cheerless tones. 

That it was indeed a stronghold was: the more ap- 
parent to us the nearer that we came to it. The plan 
of it was that of a great fan, spread open upon the hill- 
side, and extending also across the broad sweep of 
level land between the base of the promontory and the 
lake. The promontory had been so cut and shaped 
that its gentle slope had been transformed into six 
broad semicircular terraces, above the highest of which 
was a semicircular plateau of very considerable size, 
on which stood the Treasure-house, that also was the 
great temple. Along the fave of each terrace, and 
around the face also of the plateau, a heavy defensive 
wall rose to a height of twenty feet or more; and from 
the base of the crowning plateau, thence accessible by 
a single broad flight of stairs—being led through open- 
ings in the rampart walls of the terraces, and down each 
terrace face by means of stair-ways—twelve streets 
descended, of which the central six ended at the water- 
side and the remainder against the great outer wall. 

16 


242 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


It was this outer line of strong defence that gave the 
city—which otherwise would have corresponded curi- 
ously closely with the fortified city of Quetzaltepec, 
described by the Mexican chronicler Tezozomoc—its 
most distinctive characteristic. Such a vastly thick 
wall, for the great length of it, as this was I never 
have seen in any other place; and so solid was the 
building of it that it would have been proof against 
any ordinary train of siege artillery. For defence 
against a foe whose only missile weapons would be 
javelins and slings and bows, this great wall made the 
city absolutely impregnable. And that the protection 
that it gave might be still more complete—and also, as 
Tizoc explained to us, that in the case of siege the wa- 
ter supply might be assured, together with a supply of 
fish for food—the wall was carried out into the lake so 
far as to enclose a basin of more than four acres in ex- 
tent; within which, should an enemy gain access to the 
valley, all the boats upon the lake could be brought 
together and held in safety. And finally, the one en- 
trance to the city was by way of a tunnel-like canal 
cut in the wall thus rising from the water; the outer 
end of which canal was closed in ordinary times by a 
heavy grating, while in war time the inner end also 
could be closed by means of great metal bars. 

It was towards this entrance that the barge that 
carried us was heading. Presently we reached it, and 
the grating was raised for our admission by means of 
chains which were operated from the top of the wall. 
So low and so narrow was the passage that our heads 
were within a few inches of the huge slabs of stone of 


THE WALLED CITY OF CULHUACAN. 243 


which its roof was formed; and the rowers had need to 
unstep the mast and then to lay their oars inboard, 
while they brought the barge through by pushing with 
their hands against the roof and sides. The canal was 
fully forty feet long, and thus the enormous thick- 
ness of the wall was made apparent to us. It truly 
was, as I observed to Rayburn, a work that well might 
be attributed to the Cyclops. 

“I never met a live Cyclop, Professor,” Rayburn an- 
swered, “and I don’t believe that these fellows ever did 
either; but it bothers me to know how they managed 
to do work like this without a steam-derrick. If we 
get out of here with whole skins and our \air on our 
heads, I hope it won’t be until P’ve had a chance to 
talk to some of their engineers, and so get down to the 
facts.” 

A moment later we emerged from the tunnel through 
the wall, and so entered the enclosed basin that extend- 
ed along the whole of the city’s front. Within the 
basin were lying many canoes, and also boats of a 
larger sort that carried oars and that were rigged 
with a sort of lug-sail; but these all kept away from 
us, even as all the boats which we had seen during our 
passage of the lake had given us a wide berth. That 
our barge—one of those employed exclusively in the 
Priest Captain’s service—was thus shunned was due, 
as I found later, to the wholesome dread in which the 
special servitors of the temple and of its head univer- 
sally were held; for these very frequently abused the 
authority acquired through their semi-sacerdotal func: 
tions by using it as a cloak to cover acts of purely per: 


ey 


244 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


sonal oppression, while at all times they were feared 
as the executors of their master’s wrath. There was, 
indeed (though I did not mention this fact to Fray 
Antonio), a curiously close resemblance between the 
officials of this class and the familiars of the Inquisi- 
tion, both in the duties which they performed and in 
the fear and hatred which they everywhere inspired. 
But even dread of entanglement with the Priest 
Captain’s servants could not restrain the curiosity of 
the crowd that pressed towards us on the broad pier 
upon which we disembarked. It was evident that this 
crowd was not made up of the common folk of the 
city, and also that it was moved by a purpose far 
higher than that of a mere idle longing to see some- 
thing that was strange. From their dress, and still 
more from the beauty of their ornaments and the ele- 
gance of the arms which many of them carried, it was 
obvious that for the most part these men were citi- 
zens of the highest rank; and this fact was still fur- 
ther attested by the dignity of their demeanor and by 
the reverent age to which the majority of them had 
attained. So far from manifesting any vulgar excite- 
ment, the crowd maintained an absolute silence; and 
with this an exterior air of calm that was the more im- 
pressive because the eager, almost awe-struck expres- 
sion upon every face showed how strong was the emo- 
tion that thus strongly was restrained. But when El 
Sabio, after much coaxing, crossed the gang-plank be- 
tween the boat and the pier, and so eame to where he 
could be seen of all plainly, there was a curious low 
sound in the air as though all at onee every man in 


THE WALLED CITY OF CULHUACAN. 245 


the crowd had heaved a sigh; and the sound swelled 
into a loud murmur as Pablo, in obedience to a quick 
order that I gave him in Spanish, briskly mounted 
upon the ass’s back. In this murmur only one word 
was intelligible, and that I caught again and again: 
the prophecy ! 

But Pablo was no more than fairly seated upon El 
Sabio’s back than the officer in command of our guard 
took him roughly by the shoulders and snatched him 
thence to the ground again ; which act led Tizoc and 
me to a quick exchange of startled glances, for it 
showed very plainly that the Priest Captain—to whom 
the messenger telling of our coming into the valley 
had been sent before any of these people had seen 
Pablo mounted upon El Sabio’s back—had anticipated 
this sign of the fulfilment of the prophecy and had 
given orders to prevent it. Luckily, the celerity with 
which Pablo had executed my quick order to mount 
had saved the day for us; and even more than saved 
it, for as we passed through the crowd, on our way 
from the water-side into the city, I caught here and 
there fragments of comment upon what had just passed 
which showed that not only was the sign told of in the 
prophecy recognized, but that the effort on the part of 
the officer to neutralize it was understood. 

But before our going into the city there was a stir- 
ring conflict of authority concerning us between the 
temporal and the spiritual powers. We were no more 
than fairly landed, indeed, when an officer addressed 
the barge-master, who continued in charge of our 
party, and gave him a formal order to bring the stran: 


246 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


gers directly before the Council of the Twenty Lords. 
And to this the barge-master replied that he already 
was under orders to bring the prisoners, immediately 
upon their landing, before the Priest Captain —and 
there was something both curious and ominous, it 
struck me, in the marked manner in which the term 
“strangers”? was employed by one of these men and 
the term “ prisoners” by the other. 

At this juncture we had further proof of the fore- 
sight of the Priest Captain, and of the determined 
stand that he was prepared to make rather than to 
suffer the miscarriage of his plans. While the barge- 
master and the messenger from the Council still were 
engaged in hot talk as to which of the two conflict- 
ing orders should be recognized, there was a sound of 
tramping feet and of arms clanking; and then a body 
of fully one hundred soldiers came quickly out from 
behind a house that was near by the water-side and 
swept down on a double-quick to where we were stand- 
ing at the end of the pier. The crowd, jostled aside 
to make way for the passage of the soldiers, evidently 
regarded them with astonishment; and this astonish- 
ment rapidly changed to anger as the purpose that 
brought them thither was made plain. In a moment 
they had closed in around us, separating us from the 
Council’s messenger and from Tizoc ; the barge-master 
placed himself at the head of them, and in sharp, quick 
tones gave the order to march; and the whole force, 
with ourselves in the centre of it, went off the pier at a 
round pace, and thence along a street that led towards 
the city’s heart. Evidently acting under orders, the 


THE WALLED CITY OF CULHUAGAN. 247 


men broke their platoons and closed in around us; and 
I was well convinced that this unsoldierly marching 
was adopted to the end that El Sabio might not be 
seen. 

Fray Antonio agreed with me that the Priest Cap- 
tain was carrying matters with a dangerously high 
hand in thus opposing the will of the Council with 
armed force. This act of his, if Tizoc had correctly 
represented to us the excited condition of popular feel- 
ing, was quite sufficient in itself to stir into violent 
activity the slumbering fires of mutiny. But whether 
the revolt that we now believed must surely come 
would come in time to be of service to ourselves, we 
could not but look upon as a very open question. 

“Tf this old scoundrel is as sharp as he seems to 
be,” Rayburn said, “and if he keeps things up in the 
way he’s begun, it’s about all day with us. His play 
should be tc get rid of us as quick as he can manage 
it; and I should judge, from the cards that he’s put 
down, that that’s precisely the way he means to man- 
age the game. It’s not much comfort to us to know 
that after he’s cleaned us out somebody else will rake 
his pile.” 

As we talked, we went on rapidly through the city; 
and even the danger that we were in, and the excite- 
ment that attended this sudden shifting of our fort- 
unes, could not prevent me from studying with a 
lively curiosity the many evidences of an advanced 
civilization that I beheld. The plan of the city, as I 
had discerned while we were approaching it, was that 
of a wide-open fan. From the Treasure-house, on the 


248 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


height in the centre, twelve broad streets radiated out- 
ward, of which three on the northern side and three 
on the southern ended against the great enclosing 
wall, and six came down through openings in the walls 
along the several terraces directly to the water-front. 
All of these streets were well paved with large smooth 
blocks of stone, and were led up the faces of the ter- 
races by wide and easy stairs. The transverse streets 
were true semicircles, starting from and ending at 
the face of the cliff, and were carried along the 
outer edges of the terraces, just inside their facing 
walls. Rayburn was even more astonished than I was 
by the exactness with which these great semicircles 
were laid off; for he apprehended, as I did not, the 
difficulty attendant upon running a line in a true and 
regular curve. But I am not prepared to say that this 
work could not have been accomplished by mere rule 
of thumb. My friend Bandelier, in the course of his 
admirable analysis of the ruins at Mitla, has made 
clear to me how easy it is to attribute to scientific 
knowledge work that is the result only of manual 
skill, As I have pointed out in my discussion of this 
matter in my Pre-Columbian Conditions on the Con- 
tinent of North America, the plateau at the top of this 
range of terraces easily might have been laid off in 
a true semicircle by the simple means of a pointed 
stick at the end of a long rope; and from the true 
line thus established the line of the terrace below it 
could have been had—and so on down to the lowest 
terrace of all. 

There could be no doubt, however, that engineering 


THE WALLED CITY OF CULHUACAN. 249 


skill of a high order—howsoever crude might have 
been the actual method of its application—was exhib- 
ited both in the preparation of the site, and then in 
the city’s building. On the site alone an almost in- 
credible amount of labor had been expended; for the 
rocky promontory —that primitively, as the result 
showed, had been broken and irregular—had been so 
cut away in some places, and so filled in in others, 
and the whole of it had been so carefully trimmed and 
smoothed, that in the end it became a huge mass of 
rock-work, in the regularity of which there was not 
perceptible the smallest flaw. And in this prelim- 
inary work, as well as in the building of the houses 
afterwards, fragments of stone were used of such 
enormous size that the moving of them, Rayburn de- 
clared, would be wellnigh impossible even with the 
most powerful engineering appliances of our own time. 
Nor was the use of these huge pieces of stone confined 
to the foundations of the houses. Some of them were 
high above the ground; indeed, the very largest that 
we observed—the weight of which Rayburn estimated 
at not less than twenty tons—was a single block that 
made the entire top course of a high wall. 

All of the stone-work was well smoothed and squared; 
and while the exteriors of the houses were entirely plain, 
we could see through the open door-ways that the inte- 
riors of many of them were enriched with carvings. All 
were destitute of windows opening upon the street; 
and their dull, black walls, and the dull black of the 
stones with which the streets were paved, gave a 
dark and melancholy air to the city that oppressed us 


250 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


even more heavily when thus seen closely than it had 
when we beheld it from afar off. Yet the interior 
court-yards, so far as we could tell from the glimpses 
that we had of them through open door-ways, were 
bright with sunshine and gay with flowers; thus show- 
ing that the gloom of these dwellings did not extend 
beyond their outer walls. I observed with much inter- 
est that the provision for closing the entrances from 
the street was not swinging doors of wood, but either 
metal bars, such as we had seen in Tizoc’s house, or 
else a metal grating, that was arranged like a port- 
cullis to slide up and down in a groove; and [I attrib- 
uted the absence of wooden doors less to a desire for 
stronger barriers than to the comparative recentness 
of the acquisition of the knowledge of wood-working 
tools. Here, I thought, was a curious instance of de- 
velopment along the lines of greatest resistance; for in 
itself the invention and the making of a swinging door 
of wood was a much easier matter than was the inven- 
tion and the making of these finely wrought sliding 
doors of hardened gold. 

As for Young, the sight of all this gold-work quite 
took his breath away. “It regularly jolts me, Pro- 
fessor,” he said, “t’ see th’ genuine stuff, that’s good 
t? make gold dollars out of, slung around this way. A 
front door of solid gold is a huckleberry above Jay 
Gould’s biggest persimmon; an’ as t’ Solomon, these 
feliows just lay Solomon out cold—regularly down 
th’ old man an’ sit on him. Why, just for that one 
front door of th’ big house ahead of us Id sell out 
all my shares in this treasure-hunt, an’ be glad t’ do 


THE WALLED CITY OF CULHUACAN. LT 


it. But I guess I’d have to hire Samson—who was in 
that line of business—t’ carry it off for me. It must 
weigh a solid ton!” 

By this time we had mounted all of the terraces, 
and the house towards which Young pointed as he 
spoke was built directly beneath the crowning plateau 
on which the great temple stood. It was the largest 
and by far the most elegant house that we yet had 
seen, and the sliding grating of gold that closed the 
entrance was unusually heavy, and very beautifully 
wrought. Sentinels were stationed here, wearing the 
same uniform as that of the soldiers who formed our 
guard; and this further indication of the importance 
of the building gave us the impression that it was the 
dwelling of some great dignitary. Close by the portal 
we were halted, while the commander of our guard 
spoke through the grating to some one inside. A mo- 
ment later the grating was slowly raised, and we were 
marched through the narrow entrance, and so along a 
short passage-way into a long, narrow chamber that 
obviously was a guard-room ; for spears and javelins 
were ranged in orderly fashion upon racks, and swords 
and shields and bows and quivers of arrows were hung 
upon the walls. Here we were halted again; and while 
we stood silent together, wondering what might be in 
store for us in this place, we heard the heavy grating 
behind us close with a dull clang. 


252 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


XXII. 
THE OUTBREAK OF REVOLUTION. 


So dismal was this sound, and so many were the dis- 
mal possibilities that it suggested, that as I heard it a 
eold chill went down into my heart; and I was glad 
enough that we at once were led forth from the guard- 
room, and that in consideration of matters of imme- 
diate moment my mind was diverted from dwelling 
drearily upon a future that seemed full of gloom. 

For all the brilliant blaze of sunlight that bright- 
ened the large court-yard into which we were conduct- 
ed, there was about it a curious coldness and cheerless- 
ness. As in the case of all the other houses which we 
had observed, the stone-work of the walls and of the 
pavement was a dull black; but here there were no 
flowers, nor bright- colored hangings over the inner 
doors, nor brightness of any sort or kind. The carv- 
ing of the stone was extraordinarily rich, to be sure; 
but the bass-reliefs which covered the walls were wholly 
of a gloomy sort—being for the most part representa- 
tions of the slaughter of men in sacrifice, and the tear- 
ing of hearts out—so that the sight of them made me 
shiver, notwithstanding the warmth of the sun. From 
the centre of the court-yard a broad stair-way ascended 
to the plateau above on which the temple stood; and 
this direct way of communicating with it led me to the 


THE OUTBREAK OF REVOLUTION. 953 


conclusion that the building was a dependency of the 
temple, and that very likely the higher members of the 
priesthood were housed here. 

However, little time was given for looking around 
us, for our guard hurried us—E] Sabio following close 
at Pablo’s heels—across the court-yard to a door-way 
at its farther side, before which hung in heavy folds a 
curtain of some sort of thick black cloth. Across this 
entrance the guard was drawn up in orderly ranks be- 
hind us; and then the barge-master, who had preserved 
absolute silence towards us since our march through 
the city began, held aside the curtain and silently mo- 
tioned to us to enter. 

From the bright sunshine we passed at a step into a 
chamber so shadowy that we involuntarily stopped on 
the threshold, in order that our eyes might become 
accustomed to the semi-darkness before we advanced. 
The only light that entered it came through two nar- 
row slits in the thick wall above the portal that we had 
just passed; and the glimmer diffused by the thin rays 
thus admitted was in great part absorbed by the black 
draperies with which everywhere the room was hung. 
As our eyes adjusted themselves to these gloomy con- 
ditions we perceived that we were in a hall of great 
size; and presently we were able to distinguish objects 
clearly enough to see that at the far end of it was a 
raised dais, having a sort of throne upon it; but not 
until, being urged forward by the officer, we had tra- 
versed more than half the length of the hall did we 
discerned upon the throne the shadowy figure of a 
man. 


254 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


Being come close to the dais, the officer halted us 
by a gesture; but no word was spoken, and for sev- 
eral minutes we stood in the semi- darkness of that 
strange place in absolute silence. For myself, I must 
confess that I was somewhat awed by my surround- 
ings, and by the impassive silence and stillness that 
the dimly seen figure upon the throne maintained, and 
I am sure that Fray Antonio’s imaginative nature was 
similarly impressed; as for Pablo, I distinctly heard his 
teeth chattering in the dark. But neither Rayburn 
nor Young, as the latter would have expressed it, awed 
easily, and it was Rayburn who presently spoke. 

“This fellow in the big chair would be a good hand 
at private theatricals. He’s got a first-rate notion of 
stage effect. Hadn’t I better stick a pin in him and 
wake him up?” 

“There’s no good in stickin’ pins into him,” said 
Young, in a tone of great contempt. ‘ What’s the 
matter with him is, he’s not real at all—he’s stuffed!” 

There was something so absurdly incongruous in 
these comments that they acted instantly upon my 
overstrained nerves, and I burst into a laugh, in which 
the other two immediately joined. Evidently, this was 
not at all the effect that this carefully arranged recep- 
tion was intended to have upon us; for the seated fig- 
ure started suddenly and uttered an angry exclama- 
tion, and at the same time gave a quick order to the 
officer. 

“TI take it all back,” said Young; ‘“‘he ain’t stuffed. 
I guess he was only asleep.” 

As Young spoke there was a slight rustle of draper- 


THE OUTBREAK OF REVOLUTION. 255 


ies, and in a moment the curtains which had veiled 
four great windows in the four sides of the hall were 
pulled aside, and the darkness vanished in a sudden 
blaze of light. While we shaded our eyes for some 
seconds, Rayburn said, with great decision: “‘ This set- 
tles it. He must have been in the show business all his 
life.” 

But the man whom we now saw clearly did not look 
like a showman. He was a very old man, lean and 
shrivelled ; his brown skin so wrinkled that his face 
looked like some sort of curiously withered nut. Yet 
there was a wonderful sinewiness about him, and a 
most extraordinary brightness in his eyes. His face 
was of the strong, heavy type that is found in the fig- 
ures carved on the ruins in Yucatan; a much stronger 
type than I have observed anywhere among the Mexi- 
can Indians of the present day. His dress was a long, 
flowing robe of white cotton cloth, caught over his 
left shoulder with a broad gold clasp, and richly em- 
broidered with shining green feathers; and shining 
green feathers were bound into his hair and rose above 
his head in a tall plume. His sandal-moccasins (for 
the covering of his feet was between these two) re- 
peated the sacred combination of colors, green and 
white; and on his breast, falling from his neck, were 
several richly wrought gold chains. Even apart from 
his stately surroundings, his dress—and especially the 
shining green feathers which were so conspicuous a 
part of it—would have informed me that this man was 
a priest of very exalted rank; and the conditions of 
our presentation to him assured me that he was none 


256 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


other than the Priest Captain, Itzacoatl. And I may 
add that if ever a high dignitary of a heathen religion 
was in a rage, Itzacoatl was in a rage at that particu- 
lar moment. Young’s comment lacked reverence, but 
it was to the point: “Well, he has got his back up, for 
sure !” 

With an alertness that was astonishing in one of his 
years, Itzacoatl rose quickly from the throne; and as 
he pointed to us with a commanding gesture, he asked, 
sharply, why we had been allowed to retain our arms, 
and ordered them to be taken away from us; which or- 
der troubled us greatly, and also occasioned us a very 
lively surprise. As for the barge-master, he evidently 
was vastly puzzled by it; for, according to his notions, 
we were not armed. He did not venture to reply, but 
his uncertainty as to the duty that was expected of him 
was apparent in his hopeless look of entire bewilder- 
ment. It seemed to me that for a moment the Priest 
Captain was slightly confused, as though he recognized 
the incongruity between his own knowledge in this 
matter and his officer’s ignorance; and in explaining 
his order he took occasion to refer to the superior 
knowledge with which he was endowed by the gods. 
Fray Antonio and I glanced at each other doubtingly 
as he spoke, for this explanation struck us as being 
decidedly forced. The gods of the ancient Mexicans 
pre-eminently were war gods; but they certainly were 
not likely to have any very extended knowledge of 
Winchester rifles and self-cocking revolvers. 

However, when the officer comprehended what was 
required of him, he was prompt enough in his actions. 


THE OUTBREAK OF REVOLUTION. 257 


Without any ceremony at all he laid hands on Young’s 
rifle, that was hanging by its strap on his shoulder, 
and endeavored to take it away from him. This was a 
line of action that the Lost-freight Agent by no means 
was inclined to submit to. Without any assistance he 
unslung the rifle, cocked it as he jumped back half a 
dozen steps, and then raised it to his shoulder, with his 
finger on the trigger and the muzzle fairly levelled at 
the officer’s heart. ‘Shall I down him ?” he asked. 

“Don’t shoot !” Rayburn cried, quickly; and in obe- 
dience to this order Young slowly dropped the rifle 
from his shoulder, yet held it ready for action in his 
hands. The perfect calmness of the officer through 
this exciting episode afforded the most convincing 
proof that firearms were wholly unknown to him. 
And the conduct of the Priest Captain afforded equal- 
ly convincing proof that he not only understood the 
nature of fire-arms, but that he was very much afraid 
of them; for, at the moment that Young made his of- 
fensive demonstration, he very precipitately sheltered 
himself by crouching behind the throne. 

“Don’t shoot!” Rayburn repeated. “We may have 
a chance to pull through if we don’t rile these fellows ; 
but if we go to killing any of them now it’s all day 
with us, for sure. We'd better let ’em have our guns; 
but there’s something mighty odd in their having 
found out all of a sudden what a gun is.” 

Very reluctantly Young surrendered his rifle to the 
officer, who looked at it contemptuously, as though he 
considered it but a poor sort of weapon in case real 
fighting was to be done. In turn, the rest of us gave 

ay | 


258 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


up our rifles also; and we were mightily pleased be- 
cause the officer did not attempt to take our revolvers 
away from us. But in this our satisfaction was short- 
lived, for the Priest Captain quickly ordered the officer 
to relieve us of them, and of our cartridge-belts as well; 
nor was it until we had been thus entirely disarmed that 
he arose from his undignified position and resumed his 
seat upon the throne. 

While the disagreeable process of disarming us was 
going on I spoke to Fray Antonio of the curious possi- 
bilities suggested by the knowledge of fire-arms which 
the Priest Captain, alone among all the Aztlanecas, so 
obviously possessed; and he, in reply, bade me remem- 
ber what Tizoc had told us of the use that Itzacoatl 
made of wax-matches in lighting the sacred fire. “Can 
it possibly be, then, that he is in communication with 
the outside world ?” I exclaimed. 

As I uttered these words I glanced at Itzacoatl, and 
the expression on his face was that of one who listens 
intently, and who is greatly enraged by what he hears. 
At the same moment Rayburn cried: “That man un- 
derstands Spanish. He is listening to you.” 

Doubtless, some sort of an explanation would have 
followed this strange discovery, for that we had made 
it was very obvious, but at that moment a man—seem- 
ingly, from his dress, a priest of high rank—came into 
the hall hurriedly, and very earnestly delivered a com- 
munication to Itzacoatl in low, excited tones. That 
the substance of this communication was highly dis- 
agreeable to him was shown by his manner of receiving 
it; and for a moment he slightly hesitated, as though 


THE OUTBREAK OF REVOLUTION. 259 


very grave consequences might attend upon the deci- 
sion that he then made. But it was for a moment only 
that he stood in doubt. Then he called the barge-mas- 
ter to him, and gave some order in a low voice; and 
then, accompanied by the priest, went out rapidly from 
the hall. 

Evidently in obedience to the order that he had re- 
ceived, the barge-master bade us follow him, and so led 
us into the court-yard again. Young proposed, since 
we had only this one man to deal with, that we should 
make short work of him, and so get back our arms— 
which remained where he had placed them in a pile 
beside the throne. But Rayburn’s more prudent coun- 
sel overcame this tempting proposition. As he pointed 
out, the promptness with which the curtains had been 
pulled back showed that attendants of some sort were 
close at hand; and, in addition to these, we knew that 
the guard of soldiers was just outside of the entrance 
to the hall. It was certain, therefore, that we could 
not regain our arms without immediately using them 
in very active fighting ; and no matter how well we 
fought, under these conditions we must certainly be 
defeated in the end. All of which was so just and so 
reasonable that Young could not in anywise gainsay 
its propriety ; but he was in a very ill humor at being 
restrained from the pleasure of having it out with 
them, as he grumblingly declared; and as we passed 
out into the court-yard he relieved his mind by swear- 
ing most vigorously. 

For my part, even the peril that we were in did not 
suffice to distract my mind from curious consideration 


260 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


of the strange state of affairs that existed among the 
folk dwelling in this hidden valley if our surmise in 
regard to the Priest Captain’s knowledge of the outer 
world should prove to be well founded; and unless 
it were well founded, there seemed to be no possible 
way by which to account for his possession of friction- 
matches, his acquaintance with fire-arms, and his knowl- 
edge of the Spanish tongue. The implication was un- 
avoidable that this extraordinary man actually had a 
more or less complete knowledge of the powers and 
appliances of the nineteenth century, and that he was 
using his nineteenth century knowledge to maintain 
his supremacy over a people whose civilization was 
about on a par with that of European communities 
of athousand years ago. From the stand-point of the 
ethnologist, a more interesting situation than the one 
thus developed could not possibly be devised. What 
I most longed for was the establishment of such friend- 
ly relations with Itzacoatl that I could carry out a sys- 
tematized series of scientific investigations among the 
Aztlanecas before the impending crash of discovery 
came; and my keenest regret at that moment was 
caused by the conviction that the incapacity of Itza- 
coatl to understand the value of scientific inquiry into 
such curious ethnologic facts would result in his mere 
vulgar killing of me, whereby a precious store of 
knowledge would be withheld from the world at large. 

As we came out into the court-yard we heard the 
sound of voices, which seemed to be raised in angry 
altercation, coming from the direction of the main en- 
trance, with which there was also a slight clinking sound 


THE OUTBREAK OF REVOLUTION. 261 


as of arms being got in readiness; and, much farther 
away, the sound seemingly coming from a distant quar- 
ter of the city, the tapping of adrum. When we first 
had crossed the court-yard it had been entirely desert- 
ed; but now many priests and soldiers were standing 
in groups about it, and more were coming down the stair 
from the temple; and all of these men had a look of eager 
alertness, as though some decisive event were imminent 
in which they expected to have a part. But we had 
only a moment in which to observe all this, for we were 
hurried away towards the corner of the building that 
was most remote from the street, and here, before I 
well could understand what was being done with me, I 
was thrust so suddenly and so violently through a nar- 
row door-way that I fell heavily upon the floor. Before 
I could regain my feet Young had tumbled down on 
top of me, and then the others tumbled on top of us 
both—they having been in the same rude fashion in- 
jected into the apartment ; and while we thus were Ly- 
ing in a heap together—my own body, being under- 
most, having the breath wellnigh squeezed out of it— 
we heard the rattle of metal upon stone as the door- 
way was quickly closed with heavy bars. 

We struggled to our feet in wellnigh total darkness 
—for outside the bars a curtain had been dropped that 
shut off almost wholly the light of day—and I am con- 
fident that no one room ever contained two angrier peo- 
ple than Rayburn and Young were then ; for their very 
strength and hardihood made them the more ragingly 
resent being thus tumbled about as though they were 
bales or boxes rather than men. Rayburn’s language 


262 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


was not open to the charge of weakness ; but the words 
in which Young gave vent to his feelings were so star- 
tlingly vigorous that even a Wyoming cow-boy would 
have been surprised by them; yet I must confess that 
at the moment—so greatly was my own anger aroused 
—I thought his observations exceedingly appropriate to 
the occasion that called them forth, and I even was dis- 
posed to envy him the command of a technical vocabu- 
lary that enabled him to express so adequately his right- 
eous wrath. However, I was for once well pleased that 
Fray Antonio did not understand English. 

But our anger quickly was swallowed up in anxious 
grief as we discovered, when our eyes had become some- 
what accustomed to the very faint light, that only we 
four were in the room together ; and a great dread fell 
upon us because of the imminent peril to Pablo which 
this separation of him from the rest of usimplied. As- 
suredly there was strong reason why he should be an 
especial object of Itzacoatl’s fear and hatred. He and 
El Sabio together were the visible sign which told that 
the prophecy touching the Priest Captain’s downfall 
was about to be fulfilled ; and, more than this, Pablo’s 
simple statement of the condition of affairs among the 
modern Mexicans—showing that the crisis in their fate 
that Chaltzantzin had foretold, and for which he had so 
well prepared, long since had come and gone— would 
be far more convincing to the masses of the Aztlanecas 
than would be any exhibition of these same facts that 
we could make to them; for we were aliens among 
them, while Pablo was of their own race and class. 
That we all were like to be done to death by this bar- 


THE OUTBREAK OF REVOLUTION. 263 


barous theocrat we did not for a moment doubt; but it 
was plain enough that every motive of self-interest must 
prompt him to put Pablo and the poor ass most sum- 
marily out of the way. And as the logic of these facts 
irresistibly presented itself in my mind a keen and 
heavy sorrow overcame me, for I could not shirk the 
conviction that, whoever might strike the blow that 
killed him, I myself was the cause of this poor boy’s 
death. Fray Antonio could not see my face in that 
shadowy prison, yet his fine nature divined the pain 
that I suffered and the cause of it, and he sought to 
comfort me with his sympathy. He did not speak, but 
he came close beside me and tenderly laid his hand upon 
my shoulder ; and his loving touch, telling of his sorrow 
for me and with me, did bring a little cheer into my 
heavy heart. 

Meanwhile the commotion outside increased great- 
ly, and even through the thick folds of the curtain we 
could hear plainly the clanking of arms, and the heavy 
tread of men, and sharply given words of command. 
We pressed close to the bars and tried to push the cur- 
tain aside that we might see out into the court-yard ; 
but the bars were so near together that our hands would 
not pass between them, and we therefore could gather 
only from the sounds which we heard what was going 
on outside. But the sounds were unmistakable. There 
could be no doubt whatever that a vigorous assault upon 
the building was in progress, and that those within it 
vigorously were defending it; and we knew that the 
cause of the fighting certainly must be ourselves. Al- 
ready, it would seem, the prophecy of the Priest Cap- 


264 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


tain’s downfall was assuming a tangible reality; for 
this rising in arms against him could mean nothing less 
than that his high-handed refusal to permit us to be 
carried before the Council of the Twenty Lords had 
fairly brought matters to a crisis, and that the long- 
threatened revolution actually had been begun. 


XXIII. 
A RESCUE. 


Tuat the two parties should be thus battling for 
possession of us gave us a gleam of hope for the sav- 
ing of our lives. While we remained prisoners, in the 
ward of the Priest Captain, we knew that our death 
was inevitable; inasmuch as the witness which we bore 
against him, if suffered to be published, must of ne- 
cessity bring his authority to an end. But should we 
pass into the ward of the Council, there was every rea- 
son why we should be cherished and protected ; be- 
cause, in their behalf, we would be witnesses to the 
justice of their rebellion against Itzacoatl’s rule. Nor 
would this feeling of amity towards us be confined to 
the leaders of the revolt; for we had perceived the sub- 
stantial nature of the reasons which Tizoc had given 
us in support of his assurance that the hope of deliver- 
ance from oppression which our coming brought would 
raise up around us a host of friends. Therefore we 
knew that upon the issue of the battling that we heard 
the sounds of so loudly, and yet that might as well have 


A RESCUE. 265 


been a thousand miles away for all that we could see 
of it, our fate must depend. 

And knowing this, it was a hard trial of our nerves 
and tempers to be forced to remain there idle in the 
dark, without the chance to strike in our own behalf a 
single blow. Young strode backward and forward in 
such a fashion, and the mutterings beneath his breath 
were so like growls, that the likening of him to a wild 
beast in a cage, while trite, is strictly accurate. Ray- 
burn, not less resolute, but more self-contained, pressed 
close against the bars and never stirred, save that now 
and then he cracked his thumbs and fingers together 
with such vigor that the sound was like a pistol-shot. 
And even I, who am not naturally of a blood-thirsty 
disposition, found the need of walking briskly about 
our prison in order to quiet a little my strong longing 
to be outside with a weapon in my hands wherewith 
I could crack some skulls open. Indeed, among us 
all, only Fray Antonio maintained an outward show of 
calm. 

Thus far, all the sounds which we had heard had 
come to us from the direction of the front of the house, 
whence we inferred that the fight was being waged, 
greatly to the disadvantage of the assailants, through 
the grating by which the entrance was closed. But 
suddenly there was an outcry of alarm close by us in 
the court-yard, and then the sound of hurrying feet 
there, and then a roar of shouting mingled with the 
fierce clash of arms—so that we knew that the assail- 
ants, either by beating in the grating or by scaling the 
roof, had got inside. They and the defenders were 


266 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


engaged, hand to hand, almost within arm’s-length of 
us. We could hear loudly the yells with which every 
stroke was accompanied, and the clang of metal strik- 
ing upon metal, and the dull, crushing sound of the 
blows which went home truly and carved through flesh 
and bone—and we could see no more of it all than if 
we were dreaming, and these sounds of savage warfare 
were but the imaginings of our brains! One man, be- 
ing, as we supposed, pursued by another from the cen- ' 
tral part of the court-yard—where, as it seemed, the 
fight raged most hotly—made a stand just outside the 
curtain that overhung the bars whereby we were pent 
in; and we could hear him panting as he struck and 
parried there, and then the splitting of his flesh and 
the crash of his bones as a tremendous blow overcame 
his guard, and the soft, deep groan that he gave as his 
life left him. His body fell against the curtain and 
dragged it a little; and presently, as I stood there by 
the bars, I found that my feet were in a pool of blood. 

It was only a moment or two after this that the 
sounds of conflict very sensibly diminished, and we 
heard a rush made, and the confused tread of feet upon 
the stairs that led upward to the temple, and then 
came so jubilant a shouting that we knew that to one 
side or the other had come victory. 

“Tf th’ Priest Captain’s outfit ’s on top,” Young said, 
grimly, “I guess we’ve about got t’ th’ end of a divis- 
ion; an’ there’s not much chance of our changin’ en- 
gines an’ keepin’ on with th’ run.” To which figura- 
tive suggestion Rayburn gave an immediate grunt of 
assent. 


A RESCUE. 267 


But at that very instant there was a lull in the tumult 
outside, and we heard a voice that I recognized as Ti- 
zoc’s loudly calling to us; and to his hail, that carried 
such joyful meaning with it, I joyfully and loudly an- 
swered. ‘l’o Rayburn and Young, of course, the call 
was unintelligible, nor did they recognize the voice of 
him who called; and they therefore were disposed to 
think, when I fell to shouting, that my brain was ad- 
dled. However, they changed their views a minute or 
two later—the dead body resting against the curtain 
having been thrown aside, and the curtain itself torn 
down—when they saw Tizoc’s friendly face outside 
the bars, and then saw the bars rapidly removed. 

“Colonel,” said Young, very seriously, as we stepped 
forth thankfully once more into the sunshine, “ you may 
not know what a brick is, but you are one. Shake!” 
and very much to Tizoc’s astonishment, though he 
perceived that the act was meant to express great 
friendliness, Young most vigorously shook his hand. 
Under more favorable circumstances Tizoc, no doubt, 
would have asked for an explanation of this curious 
ceremony, but just then his whole mind was given to 
making good his retreat and so securing us against re- 
capture. There was not a moment to lose, he said; 
throughout the city the priests everywhere were rally- 
ing forces to Itzacoatl’s support, and at any instant 
we might be attacked. As he spoke he drew us away 
with him towards the street, where the main body of 
his men still remained—for only a small part of them 
had joined in scaling the roof, and so taking the enemy 
by surprise in the rear 


268 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


“But what of Pablo, our young companion” I 
asked, stopping short as I spoke. 

“*My men are looking for him; they will find him in 
a moment; he surely is safe; he may be already out- 
side. Come.” 

The possibility that Pablo truly might be outside of 
the building was the only argument that could have 
induced us to leave it without him; and that possibili- 
ty was so reasonable a one that we made no more de- 
lay. Indeed, we fully realized the necessity for prompt- 
ness. From all parts of the city came a humming, 
angry sound, which assured us that everywhere the 
people were aroused; and Tizoc bade us arm ourselves 
with what weapons we could use most effectively among 
those which were scattered about the pavement of the 
court-yard, as we surely would have need of weapons 
soon. A sword was the only instrument of warfare of 
which I had knowledge—which knowledge was ac- 
quired during my German student days—and I took, 
therefore, one of the heavy maccuahuitls; and the others 
also, excepting Fray Antonio, similarly armed them- 
selves, each with a sword that they found lying beside 
the dead hand that never would wield it more. It was 
as we obeyed Tizoc’s order that we saw how fierce and 
how bloody the fight had been; for the court-yard was 
red with blood, like a slaughter-house, and over the 
stones everywhere dead bodies were lying, all cut and 
gashed with ghastly wounds. Excepting a few of 
Tizoe’s men, who had bound up their hurts, and who 
staggered along with us, not a wounded man remained 
alive; whence we inferred that the fight had been 


A RESCUE. 269 


waged on strictly barbarous principles, and that no 
quarter had been given. And of this we had proof; 
for as we passed through the guard-room we found 
there a moaning wretch, belonging to the Priest Cap- 
tain’s party, in whose chest was a great hole made by 
a spear-thrust—and at a sign from Tizoc one of our 
men stepped aside, and with a blow of his heavy sword 
coolly mashed in the wounded man’s skull, and so fin- 
ished him. 

The metal grating that closed the entrance had been 
raised by Tizoc’s people from the inside, and we passed 
out beneath it to where the main body of his men was 
drawn up in readiness to march. But of Pablo and El 
Sabio there was no sign. 'Tizoc was not less distressed 
by the loss of the lad than we were, for he had count- 
ed upon the moral effect which the exhibition of Pablo 
and El Sabio most certainly would produce to aid pow- 
erfully in fomenting the spirit of revolt. When, there- 
fore, we refused to go forward until further search had 
been made, he did not oppose us; but he told us plain- 
ly that further looking for him in that place was use- 
less, for already every room in the building had been 
examined without the finding of a trace of him. There 
could be no doubt, he said, that when we had been 
made prisoners Pablo, and El Sabio with him, had been 
taken up the stair to the temple for greater security; 
in which place, if they were not both by this time dead, 
they still remained. Whereupon Young was for mak- 
ing an attack upon the temple instantly, and in this 
project Rayburn and I warmly seconded him; and 
even Fray Antonio said that this was a case in which 


276 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


he felt justified in using carnal weapons, since the fight. 
ing would be to rescue from among infidels a Christian 
soul. 

But Tizoc hurriedly explained to us the hoplessness, 
at that time, of such an assault. The success that had 
attended his bold rescue of us had been due to the sud- 
denness of it; for the majority of the people in the 
city, including the large force of soldiery there, assur- 
edly was on the Priest Captain’s side. It was outside 
the city that the strength of the revolution must be 
gathered; and his orders were, when his rescue of us 
should be accomplished, to carry us safely out beyond 
the walls with all possible speed. Such of the Council 
of the Twenty Lords as had decided to take the chances 
of revolt—being all the members of that body save the 
five priests that had belonged to it—already had gone 
down to the water-side, together with the small force 
that they had gathered, that they might seize the water- 
gate and hold it until we should join them. Even now 
it was certain that in going down through the city we 
should have to fight our way, and each moment that 
we delayed our retreat increased our danger. Captur- 
ing the temple now was a sheer impossibility. Our 
only hope of saving Pablo’s life lay in our getting 
away promptly, and so beginning the preparations that 
would lead to ultimate victory. 

All the while that Tizoc spoke he was edging us 
away towards the outer face of the terrace, where steps 
led downward; and when the men who had been 
searching the building once more for Pablo returned 
without him, he resolutely gave the order to march. 


A RESCUE. hag | 


To the arguments that he had advanced we were com- 
pelled to yield; but our hearts were heavy with sor- 
row for the boy whom we were leaving behind us, and 
little hope was in our breasts that we ever again 
should see him alive. 

The truth of Tizoc’s words about the great danger 
that we ourselves were in became apparent as we 
crossed the terrace next below that on which our 
march began. Where the street passed through the 
rampart by a narrow portal, and so by a flight of stone 
steps descended to the next level, soldiers were clus- 
tered together with the evident intention of disputing 
the way with us. Their number was so much less than 
ours that we made short work of them; killing a few, 
and driving the remainder down the steps before us. 
But those who escaped ran on ahead of us to where 
the next rampart was, and there joined themselves to 
a much larger body that lay in wait for us. Here our 
work was less easy; for the force that confronted us 
was nearly our equal, and some resolute fighting was 
required before we could drive it before us and so pass 
on. Some of our men were killed there, and more of 
the enemy; and I got a trifling hurt in my arm from 
the point of a javelin, that, luckily, did little more 
than graze the skin. I do not think that I killed any- 
body there, but I remember very plainly the look of 
pain and of anger on the face of that fellow who poked 
his javelin at me when I gashed his arm, and broke 
the bone of it, with a blow from my sword. I was 
glad, at the moment, that I had succeeded in giving 
him a worse hurt than he had given me; and then the 


DA be THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


absurdity occurred to me of my thus fighting with a 
total stranger, against whom I had no personal ill-will; 
and I could not but feel sorrow for him as I thought 
of the long time that he must suffer severe pain and 
great inconvenience because I had chanced to strike 
him that blow. However, from the way in which they 
went cutting and slashing about them, it was evident 
that neither Rayburn nor Young were troubled with 
any compunctions of this nature. They were only too 
glad, apparently, to get a chance to whack away at 
any of the Priest Captain’s representatives ; and they 
made such use of their opportunity that the Aztlane- 
cas fighting with us cried out in admiration of their 
prowess and their strength. Fray Antonio was more 
sorely tried than any of us during this passage, for I 
knew that his flesh greatly longed to take part in the 
fighting, and that only the strong spirit which was 
within him subdued the flesh and so held his hands, 

With a final rush we succeeded in forcing the en- 
emy through the narrow opening in the rampart, and 
so down the steps beyond; but as we pursued them 
across the next terrace, keeping close at their heels so 
that they might not have time to form again, many 
of our wounded fell out from the ranks and dropped 
by the way—and we had left behind us a dozen or 
more of our dead on the ground where the fight had 
been. 

Our tactics of rapid pursuit of the force that we had 
defeated served us well at the next rampart; for the 
men whom we pursued and we ourselves came to it 
almost in one body, and thus threw into such confu- 


A RESCUE. 273 


sion the fresh force that was waiting for us that, with- 
out any long fighting about it, we drove right through 
them and went on downward ; and in the same dash- 
ing fashion we carried the rampart beyond. However, 
when these men whom we had pushed aside from our 
path so easily got over their surprise at being so light- 
ly handled, they formed in our rear and came hurry- 
ing after us; the result of which was that as we ap- 
proached the last of the ramparts that we had to pass 
through, where was gathered the largest body of men 
that we had yet encountered, we found ourselves fairly 
wedged in between two bodies of the enemy and out- 
numbered four to one. Here, too, the passage through 
the rampart had been closed by the metal bars that 
were in readiness for that purpose. Setting these in 
place was no real barrier to our passage, for, being in- 
tended to close the portal against assailants from be- 
low, the fastenings which held them were on the side 
nearest to us. But to remove them it was necessary 
that we should fight our way through the crowd—with 
no possibility of driving the enemy before us, as we 
had done upon the upper terraces, since here the way 
was closed. What we did was literally to cut a path 
through the throng; and over the men who fell dead 
or wounded beneath our blows we made our advance. 
There was a curious creeping, uneasy sensation in the 
region of my stomach as I trod thus on the bodies of 
wounded men who were not dead yet, and felt them 
moving, and heard their groaning; and I was conscious 
of a feeling of relief when a body that I trod upon 
did not squirm beneath my foot, and so by its stillness 
18 


274 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


assured me that I was standing only on dead flesh that 
had no feeling in it. 

Very slowly did we go forward, for while the living 
barrier that we had to deal with was not at the outset 
more than twenty feet, or thereabouts, in thickness, 
hacking it down took us a tediously long time. While 
still we faced a dozen or more very desperate fighters, 
who held us off most resolutely from the metal bars 
which closed the way, a pang of dread and sorrow 
went through me as I perceived that Fray Antonio, 
who a moment before had been close beside me, had 
disappeared. That he might the better restrain his 
longing to take part in the fighting he had remained 
in the centre of our men; and it was hard to under- 
stand how, in that position, harm could have come to 
him, for missiles had no share in the work that was 
going forward, which was a fiery struggle hand to 
hand. ¢ 

As I looked for him in the throng—so far as I could 
do this and at the same time keep up my guard 
against the man whom at that moment I was fighting 
with—I saw some signs of uneasy movement among 
the enemy in advance of us, and several of them evi- 
dently made an effort to reach down as though to get 
at something that was on the ground; which effort 
was wholly futile, for they were wedged so tightly to- 
gether by our pressure upon them that reaching down- 
ward was impossible. By a lucky blow, I just then 
finished the man with whom I was contending, and so 
had a moment’s breathing spell; and at that instant I 
saw one of the enemy, whose back was ranged against 


THE AFFAIR AT THE WATER-GATE. 275 


the bars, rise up in the air as though a strong spring 
had been loosed beneath him, and then fall sidewise 
upon the heads and shoulders of his fellows. And 
then, in the place thus made vacant, the cowled head of 
Fray Antonio instantly appeared—whereby I guessed, 
what afterwards I knew certainly, that he had crawled 
along the ground through the press until he reached 
the place that he aimed at, and then had risen up be- 
neath one of the enemy with such sudden violence 
that he fairly had sent the man spinning upward into 
the air. What his purpose was I saw in a moment, 
for no sooner did he stand upright than he had his 
hands upon the metal bars, and then I heard the clink- 
ing together of stone and metal as he lifted them 
bodily away. 


XXIV. 
THE AFFAIR AT THE WATER-GATE. 


RayYBURN gave a great roar of gladness as the clink- . 
ing sound made him turn and he saw what was going 
forward; and Young and I joined him in lusty Anglo- 
Saxon cheering, while our allies, in the savage fashion 
natural to them, vented their joy in shrill yells. In 
the midst of which cheering and yelling we pushed 
forward so hotly that the enemy, disconcerted by this 
sudden shifting of fortune in our favor, and the men 
directly in front of us being most seriously incom- 
moded by their comrade lying sprawled out and kick- 
ing upon their heads and shoulders, seemed suddenly 


276 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


to lose heart so completely that we had no difficulty 
in cutting them down. Even had they not been too 
closely wedged in to turn upon Fray Antonio, our 
strong dashing upon them would have compelled them 
to leave him unharmed in order to defend themselves; 
and so it was that, by the time we had cut a path to 
the portal, the monk had released the whole tier of 
bars from their fastenings, and the way was free. 

As we sprang down the steps—with Fray Antonio, 
once more in the guise of a non-combatant, safe in the 
midst of our company—we heard a great outcry from 
below, and saw a considerable body of men marching 
up towards us steadily from the water-side; but the 
alarm that sight of them gave us was only momentary, 
for their shouts, and the shouts of our men in answer, 
showed us that these were friends come to our sup- 
port. However we had no great need of them, for those 
of the enemy whom we left alive behind us seemed 
suddenly to have grown sick of fighting, and made 
no attempt to follow after us down the stairs. Yet 
the coming of this supporting force, to be just in the 
matter, no doubt was the saving of us; for more than 
half of the men who had been with us when we started 
on our march down through the city had been slain 
by the way, and nearly all in our company were more 
or less disabled by wounds. Tizoc and Young and 
Rayburn had come through it all without so much as 
a scratch, and because of their extraordinary strength 
these three were almost as fresh as when the fighting 
began; but the rest of us were sorely weary, and our 
breathing was so heavy and so tremulous that each 


THE AFFAIR AT THE WATER-GATE. OTT 


breath was like a long-drawn sob. Truly, then, we 
were glad to fall in in advance of the supporting col- 
umn and so make our way, with a strong rear-guard 
for our protection, across the bit of level land that lay 
between us and the lake. 

At the water-side boats were in readiness for us, and 
here we found also the members of the Council who 
had ordered, and who were the recognized leaders of, 
the revolt. ‘There was still more fighting ahead of us, 
for the necessity of sending back the relief party had 
prevented the seizing of the water-gate; and this was 
a matter that had to be attended to quickly, for we 
could see bodies of men coming down several of the 
streets in pursuit of us, and unless we escaped outside 
the wall before they overtook us there was a strong 
and dismal probability that our whole plan would fail. 
Therefore, we tumbled aboard the boats with all pos- 
sible rapidity, and while the pursuing parties still were 
far in our rear we shoved off from the shore. — 

Two minutes’ quick rowing sufficed to carry our flo- 
tilla of boats across the basin, and so brought us to the 
long pier that extended landward from beside the wa- 
ter-gate, and from which an open stair-way ascended 
to the top of the wall. On the pier there was no one 
at all to oppose our landing; and the force on the wall 
was not likely to be a large one, for the outbreak had 
come so suddenly that there had been no time to in- 
crease the small detail maintained in this position in 
times of peace. Only a few of our men, therefore— 
thirty or forty, perhaps—were ordered out of the boats 
to the attack, of which the leader was Tizoc, and with 


278 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


which Rayburn and Young went as volunteers. I also 
would have joined the party; but Rayburn, knowing 
that I was slightly wounded, begged me to stay where 
I was; and Young, as he ran up the stairs, called back 
to me: “ You just see that they keep steam up, Pro- 
fessor. We’ll attend t’ takin’ off th’ brakes.” 

What went on above us, on top of the wall, we could 
not see; but the work done there was done quickly. 
There was a little shouting, a sound of arms clashing, 
and then four or five men—as though this were the 
easiest way of getting rid of them—were thrown over 
the parapet, and fell near us in the water. To these 
short shrift was given. As they came to the surface, 
our fellows instantly finished them with a spear-thrust 
ortwo. Then we heard the sound of a windlass creak- 
ing, and the clanking of chains; and as we looked 
through the opening in the wall we saw the grating 
that closed its farther end rise slowly until the way 
before us was free. Two of our boats already were in 
the passage, so that no time might be lost; and as these 
passed out into the lake, the others followed after them 
rapidly. One boat remained to bring off the attack- 
ing party, and we wondered a little because its com- 
ing was a good while delayed. But we wondered still 
more when it joined us at last, and we found that Tizoc 
and Young and Rayburn were not in it; indeed, at 
that moment I saw the three of them standing togeth- 
er on top of the wall. In answer to the shout that I 
gave, Rayburn leaned over the wall and motioned to 
me to keep silence; and so I knew that they had not 
been left behind through treachery, but were staying 


THE AFFAIR AT THE WATER-GATE. 279 


there because they had some plan against the enemy 
that they thus could execute. And for knowledge of 
what their plan was we did not have to wait long. 

As we lay on our oars, off the outer end of the wa- 
ter-gate, we could see through it into the basin that 
lay before the city, and in a very few minutes the pur- 
suing boats of the enemy came into view. As they 
neared us, we saw standing in the bow of the leading 
boat the same officer who had commanded the guard 
that had brought us as prisoners before the Priest 
Captain; the man of whom I have spoken, for what 
his real title was I do not know, as the barge-master. 
He was calling to his men savagely to row faster; for 
our boats were so scattered that he only could see the 
one in which we happened to be, and he doubtless im- 
agined that the others had gone forward, and that this 
one waited to carry off some of our men who yet re- 
mained on the wall. He evidently hoped to be able 
to cut us off from the rest of our party, and his eager- 
ness had so communicated itself to his oarsmen that 
his boat led the others by nearly a hundred yards. 
So far as this one boat was concerned, we felt no 
alarm, for the moment that it came out through the 
wall our whole force was ready to dash upon it; yet 
we wondered why Tizoc permitted even a single boat 
to come out to the attack, when, by dropping the grat- 
ing, they all could be penned in so effectually as to 
give us the advantage of a long start. 

As the boat neared the water-gate the barge-master 
went back from his place in the bow to the middle 
part of it, and there crouched down; and some soldiers 


280 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


who were standing crouched down also; and almost 
as the bow entered the low, narrow passage the oars 
were unshipped and taken aboard. So cleverly was 
the unshipping of the oars managed, and so good was 
the steering, that the boat shot into the passage un- 
der full speed, and so came nearly through it before 
losing head-way. And we who were nearest to it got 
our arms in readiness—for we were convinced that in 
another minute the barge-master would lay us aboard. 
But this was not destined to be, nor were the men in that 
boat destined ever to do any more fighting in this world. 

All this while Rayburn had stood close by the para- 
pet, bending over it and intently watching the outside 
of the water-gate ; above which the heavy metal grat- 
ing had been hauled up, in the metal grooves that it 
ran in, almost to the top of the wall. At the moment 
that the bow of the boat showed outside the opening 
he raised his hand, as though signalling to Young and 
Tizoc behind him; and in that same instant we heard 
the shrieking of the windlass and the quick clanking 
. of the unwinding chains, and saw the metal grating 
rushing down the face of the wall. With all the force 
generated by the fall from so great a height of so pon- 
derous a body, the grating came crashing into the boat 
just amidships, fairly dividing its heavy timbers and 
forcing the fragments of it, together with all the men 
that it carried, down into the water’s depths. But the 
barge-master died by a quicker death than drowning. 
He still was crouched in the middle of the boat, and 
the sharp angle of the lower bar of the grating struck 
him just on the nape of his neck so keenly that his 


THE AFFAIR AT THE WATER-GATE. 281 


head was cut off and seemed of itself to spring for- 
ward and away from him; while the broad flat bar, 
coming down upon his bowed shoulders, crushed his 
body into a mere quivering mass of flesh. 

A great yell of delight went up from our boats as 
this brilliant stroke so brilliantly was delivered ; and 
an answering cry of triumph—that was one-third a 
yell and two-thirds a cheer—came back from Tizoc 
and the others on top of the wall. However, they had 
no time to waste in shouting over their success, for the 
remaining boats of the enemy had come by this time 
to the pier inside the wall, and it seemed highly prob- 
able that in a minute or two more our three men would 
be prisoners. But for all their danger they coolly fin- 
ished the work that they had in hand. As they ex- 
plained to me afterwards, Rayburn stood at the head 
of the stair to hold the enemy in check should they 
come before the work was finished—and very strong 
as well as very brave must the man have been who 
would have ventured to attack him as he occupied that 
position of overpowering advantage—while the other 
two cast off from the windlass the chains by which 
the water-gate was operated, and dropped them over 
the wall into the lake; and as the gate itself was 
jammed and wedged fast by the fragments of the 
boat, this throwing down of the chains made the rais- 
ing of it a serious undertaking that well might require 
a day or more to accomplish. 

As the chains fell with a splash, and we compre- 
hended the thoroughness of the work that these three 
were doing, our people burst forth into yells again; 


282 THE AZVEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


and a perfect roar went up from them when, the gate 
being closed and the apparatus for raising it being en- 
tirely disabled, Rayburn sprang from the outer edge 
of the parapet into the lake, and Tizoc and Young in- 
stantly followed him. In truth, a more gallant feat 
of arms had not been essayed, nor carried to a more 
triumphant conclusion, since the Roman gate was held 
by Horatius; and in my admiration of it I shouted un- 
til the muscles of my throat were strained and aching. 
Our boat already was near the wall—having pulled in 
that the soldiers aboard of it might spear such of the 
enemy as came up to the surface alive—and we had 
the three out of the water and safe among us in very 
short order; and then we pulled away towards the 
other boats with all possible speed—for the wall now 
was manned by the enemy, and they were beginning 
to make things unpleasantly hot for us with the heavy 
stones which they heaved over the parapet, that our 
boat might be sunk by them, and by a rapid discharge 
of darts. Luckily, none of the stones struck us, and 
because of the rapid way that we were making, only 
two of our men were struck with the darts. So, on 
the whole, we came out of this encounter very well; 
for these two men killed in our boat were all that we 
lost, while of the enemy at least forty were drowned 
or speared. However, we owed our light escape main- 
ly to the fact that the enemy, having armed hurriedly, 
and expecting only to fight with us at close quarters, 
had with them neither bows nor slings—but for which 
fortunate fact it scarcely is possible that a single man 
in our boat would have come off alive. 


THE AFFAIR AT THE WATER-GATE. 283 


Dripping wet though they were, I fairly hugged 
Rayburn and Young when they were safe aboard with 
us, as did also Fray Antonio, whose daring spirit was 
mightily aroused by witnessing their splendid bravery. 
And in giving them hearty words of praise for what 
they had done—which yet fell far short of their de- 
serts—I naturally likened them to the Roman hero. 
Indeed, I may say that the parallel that I there drew 
Was an apt one, and in some of its turns was not de- 
void of grace. 

“T can’t say, Professor,” Young answered, when I 
had finished, “that I ever heard o’ th’ party you refer 
to, but if this Horace—what did you say his last name 
was ?—pinched his fingers in th’ drawbridge chains as 
damnably as I pinched mine in th’ chains of that in- 
fernal grating, I’ll bet a hat he was sorry that he 
hadn’t run away!” And I truly believe that Young 
thought more about his pinched fingers than he did 
about the resolute bravery that he had shown in fin- 
ishing his work upon the wall in the very face of the 
advancing enemy. 

Being once out of range of the darts, we pulled 
towards the other boats leisurely ; for now we were 
entirely safe against pursuit, and were free to go upon 
the lake in whatsoever direction we pleased. That 
some positive line of action had been determined upon 
was evident, for the flotilla already was in motion as 
we came up in the rear of it—the boat containing the 
members of the Council leading—and the order was 
passed back to us that we should follow with the rest. 
From the direction in which we were heading, Tizoc 


284 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


inferred that we were bound for the only other consid- 
erable town in the valley, that which had grown up 
around the shafts leading to the great mine whence 
the Aztlanecas drew their supply of gold. There was 
a very grave look upon his face as he told us of our 
probable destination; and presently added that the 
population of this town—save the few freemen who 
were in charge of the workings, and the large guard 
of soldiers that always was maintained there—was 
made up wholly of Tlahuicos who had been selected 
from their fellows to be miners because of their excep- 
tional hardiness and strength. 

It was among these men, he went on to tell us, 
speaking in a low, guarded voice, that the most dan- 
gerous of the revolts of the Tlahuicos invariably had 
their origin; for the miners were fierce, half-savage 
creatures, naturally turbulent and rebellious, and were 
stirred constantly to resentful anger because of the 
life of crushing toil that they were condemned to lead. _ 
So dangerous were they that the only effective means 
of keeping them in subjection was to hold the major 
part of them continually prisoners underground in the 
mine, with a guard stationed at the mouth of each 
shaft under orders to kill instantly any man who at- 
tempted to come forth from the mine without author- 
ity. In order that their labor, a thing of positive 
value, might not be lost through their dying of being 
thus imprisoned in the bowels of the earth, they were 
divided into ten great companies, each one of which, in 
regular order, was employed in the surface work under 
the constant supervision of a strong guard. Yet even 


THE GOLD-MINERS OF HUITZILAN. 285 


these stern measures were not wholly effective in pre- 
venting mutiny. Many times great revolts had broken 
out here that had set all the valley in an uproar, and 
that had been crushed only after pitched battles had 
been fought between the rebels and the entire military 
force of the state. The town was a veritable volcano, 
Tizoc declared; and because of the dread of it that 
universally obtained, by reason of the frequent out- 
bursts there of lawless violence, it had received the 
name of Huitzilan: the Town of War. 

And there could be no doubt, he added—while the 
tones of his voice and the look upon his face showed 
how great he believed to be the risk involved in this 
line of policy—that in now directing our course tow- 
ards the mining town the deliberate purpose of the 
Council was to incite these semi-savage, wholly desper- 
ate miners to join forces with us in our rising against 
the Priest Captain’s power. 


XXV. 
THE GOLD-MINERS OF HUITZILAN. 


As we rounded a mountain spur that extended a long 
way out into the lake, a deep bay opened to us; which 
bay ran close in to the cliffs whereby the valley was 
surrounded, and was at no great distance from the 
Barred Pass, through which we had made our entry. 
At the foot of the bay, built partly upon the level land 


286 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


near the water-side, and partly upon the steep ascent 
beyond, was the town of Huitzilan—whereof the most 
eurlous feature that at first was noticeable was a tall 
ebimney, whence thick black smoke was pouring forth, 
that rose above a stone building of great solidity and 
of a very considerable size. 

On archeological grounds, the sight of this chimney 
greatly astonished me; and Rayburn, who was a very 
well-read man in all matters connected with his profes- 
sion, was greatly astonished by it also; for the chimney 
obviously was a part of extensive reduction-works, and 
we both knew that such complete appliances for the 
smelting of metal, as seemed from this sign to exist 
here, were supposed to be the product of a high state 
of civilization in comparatively modern times. As for 
Young, he declared that the chimney gave him a regu- 
lar jolt of homesickness; for, excepting that it was 
built of stone instead of brick, it might have been, for 
the look of it, transplanted hither directly from the re- 
gion of the Back Bay. “I s’pose we’ll be hearin’ th’ 
noon whistle next,” he said, mournfully; and presently 
he added: “Do you know, Professor, I b’lieve I’m be- 
ginnin’ t’ see daylight in all this tall talk you say th’ 
Colonel has been givin’ us about th’ ‘ rebellions,’ as he 
calls ’em, that go on here. He don’t mean t’ close our 
eyes up, th’ Colonel don’t, for he’s a first-class gentle- 
man; but, bein’ born an’ bred a heathen, he don’t know 
any better. What he’s tryin’ t’ tell us about, an’ can’t, 
because he don’t know th’ English for it, is strikes. 
‘That’s what’s th’ matter. Miners are bound t’ go on 
strikes. It’s their nature, an’ they can’t help it. That 


THE GOLD-MINERS OF HUITZILAN. 287 


chimbly gives th’ whole thing away. You just tell tn’ 
Colonel that we’ve got down t’ th’ hard-pan an’ really 
know what he’s been drivin’ at. An’ t’ think of there 
bein’ strikes in Mexico! I didn’t b’lieve that a Greaser 
had backbone enough, or ambition enough, t’ strike at 
anything !” 

However, as I had no great amount of faith in 
Young’s theory, I did not attempt to translate to Tizoe 
what he had said to me; nor was there any opportunity 
for further talk at that time. Already the foremost 
boats of the flotilla had made a landing at a well-buiit 
pier that extended from the shore into deep water; and 
a minute or two later our boat also pulled in to the 
pier, and we disembarked. ‘The general view of the 
town that I then had showed me that it was closely 
built over an area rather more than half a mile square; 
that the houses for the most part were mere hovels, of 
which the largest could not contain more than two 
small rooms; and that the few houses of a better sort 
were within the strong stone wall by which the reduc- 
tion-works also were enclosed. At the pier where we 
landed a boat was in process of lading with bars of 
gold for transport to the Treasure-house in the city; 
and I thought that I never had seen anywhere more 
savage-looking fellows than the almost naked laborers 
by whom the work of lading was carried on. Physicai- 
ly these men were magnificent creatures—tall and well- 
shaped and vigorous, and the ease with which they han- 
dled the great bars of gold showed how enormous must 
be their strength. But so full of venomous hate were 
the sullen looks which they cast upon us, and so savage 


288 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


was the effect of their coarse, dishevelled hair falling 
down over and partly veiling their great glittering 
eves, whence these angry glances were shot forth at us 
like poisoned darts, that I was thankful to see that, all 
told, there were not more than a dozen of them, and 
that three times as many heavily armed soldiers served 
as their guard. And looking at these creatures, who 
were truly less like men than dangerous wild beasts, I 
could not wonder at the grave concern which Tizoc had 
manifested at thought of the risk which we ran in tak- 
ing them for allies. “It’s as easy t’ start em,” Young 
said, when he came to an understanding of the situa- 
tion, ‘as ’tis t’ start a freight-train down a three per 
cent. grade. But what I want to know is, when we 
want ’em t’ stop, how in th’ h—Il are we ever goin’ t’ 

set th’ brakes?” 
Yet, dangerous to ourselves though the use of it 
must be, our hopes of success rested mainly upon our 
ability to control and to employ effectively this savage 
material. Fortunately, it was not the whole of our re- 
liance ; and it was our intention to leaven this danger- 
ous lump with the very considerable number of trained 
and trustworthy soldiers that we had available as the 
substantial nucleus of our fighting force, and also with 
the larger body of both slaves and freemen—not regu- 
larly drilled soldiers, to be sure, yet many of them 
trained in the ways of war—that we counted upon to 
join us from among the people at large. 

This outline of the plan of action that the Council 
had determined upon was exhibited to us by Tizoc dur- 
ing our passage down the lake; and I was glad to find 


THE GOLD-MINERS OF HUITZILAN. 289 


that Rayburn—for whose judgment I had much re- 
spect in such matters—was disposed to think well 
of it. 

“Tf I expected to stay here, Professor, after the row 
was over,” he said, “I mightn’t be quite as well satis- 
fied with this plan of theirs for running things. The 
war part of the programme is all right. They won’t 
have any difficulty in getting their Tlahuicos to fight 
anything in the way of an army that the Priest Cap- 
tain shows up with. Fighting is just what will please 
them more than anything else. Where the trouble is 
going to come in is when the fighting is over and they 
go in for reconstruction. It’s one thing to make fight- 
ers out of this sort of stuff, but it’s quite another thing 
to make respectable citizens out of it. That’s where 
the hitch will be. But as we don’t intend to settle 
down in this valley—unless we find that there’s no way 
out of it—we needn’t bother about that part of the per- 
formance at all. That’s their funeral, not ours. So, 
for my part, the sooner they get their army in shape, 
and get the fighting part settled, the better Pll be sat- 
isfied.” | 

To dothe members of the Council justice, they seem- 
ed to be even more eager than Rayburn was to for- 
ward the work that they had in hand. From the pier 
they went directly to the enclosure in the centre of the 
town, within which was the building ordinarily occu- 
pied by the commandant of the post and by the offi- 
cials of the civil government; and in this place, Tizoc 
informed us, they intended immediately to organize the 
new government, and then to proceed with all possible 

19 


290 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


despatch to make arrangements for placing an army in 
the field. 

In Tizoc’s company, but more leisurely, we also went 
on to the Citadel—as we found the enclosure about the 
smelting-works was called—where comfortable quar- 
ters had been provided for us in the same building 
wherein the Council was housed. Here we waited, in 
somewhat strained idleness, while the Council carried 
on, in a chamber not far removed from us, its exciting 
work of destroying a government that had endured for 
more than a thousand years; and we were mightily 
surprised, knowing how prodigious was the change that 
then was being wrought in ancient institutions, by ob- 
serving how quietly it all went on. The murmur of 
talk that came to us, unchecked by any intervening 
doors, had no sound of excitement or of anger or of 
violent emotion of any sort; and I could not but hold 
in admiration the calm, self-contained natures of these 
men who thus equably and rationally could deal with 
such vastly weighty affairs. 

While this great matter—which could end only in 
wild commotion and fierce battling—went forward in 
this quiet way, Tizoc opened to us much that was of 
curious interest touching the near-by gold-mine and 
they who mined the gold. Of the existence of the 
mine, he said, the Aztlanecas had remained ignorant 
for many generations after their coming into the val- 
ley; and for many more generations but littie gold 
had been taken from it, because the metal was of no 
value to his people save for the making of ornaments, 
But when the process had been discovered by which 


THE GOLD-MINERS OF HUITZILAN. 291 


this metal could be hardened, and so made serviceable 
for all manner of useful purposes—and this the more 
because, by the manufacture that then ensued of tools 
wherewith the rock could be easily worked, mining in 
a large way became possible—the development of the 
mine upon a great scale had been begun, and had been 
continued upon a constantly increasing scale from that 
time onward. All the earth beneath where we then 
were, he said, was honey-combed with passages which 
followed the several veins; and of these there seemed 
to be no end at all, for ever as each vein was exhaust- 
ed another not less rich was found—and thus it seem- 
ed as though all the substructure of that great mount- 
ain range were one huge mass of gold. 

What the measures of weight were with which he 
estimated the annual output of the mine, I could not 
clearly understand, but the matter was made approxi- 
mately plain to us by his statement that the daily 
product of the mine never was less than one of the 
great bars of gold that we had seen upon the pier in 
process of carriage to the Treasure-house; and that 
sometimes, when veins of extraordinary richness were 
encountered, even so much as four of these bars had 
been smelted from the ore that the mine yielded in a 
single day. 

“Those bars don’t weigh an ounce less than two 
hundred pounds apiece,” Rayburn said, when I had 
translated to him what Tizoc had told me. “ That 
makes the output of the mine not less than three tons 
a month, and, in a rough way, a ton of gold is worth 
just abeut half a million of dollars. If the Colonel 


292 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


isn’t mixed in his figures, and if you’ve translated him 
straight, Professor, these fellows are taking out some- 
wheres in the neighborhood of twenty millions a year.” 

Young gave a long whistle. “Great Scott!” he ex- 
claimed, “that just is an all-fired big pile of money 
t? be wasted on a lot of barelegged heathen critters 
like these, who don’t know th’ Ten Commandments by 
sight, an’ who’ve never even heard of a cocktail! D” 
you know what I’m goin’ t’ do, Rayburn, when I real- 
ize on this investment? I’m goin’ t’ buy th’ Old Col- 
ony Railroad, just for th’ sake of bein’ able t’ bounce 
th’ Superintendent. He bounced me after that freight 
smash-up—and it wasn’t my fault that th’ operator got 
mixed an’ gave me th’ wrong orders—and [ll give him 
a taste o’ th’ same kind. Won’t it just paralyze him 
when he gets his orders t’ quit, signed ‘Seth Young, 
President,’ an’ finds out it’s th’ same old Seth Young 
who used t’ run Thirty-two on th’ Fall River division?” 

“‘Hadn’t you better let him down easy by telegraph- 
ing him right now to begin to look out for a new 
place?” Rayburn asked. “ We’ll wait for you here, 
while you step over to the Western Union office ”— 
which cool comment upon Young’s enthusiastic dis- 
counting of a bright future brought the gloomy pres- 
ent so clearly before his mind that his castle-building 
ended suddenly, and he lapsed into silence. 

But great though our wonder was at the prodigious 
quantity of precious metal that this mine yielded in 
each year, and amazed though we were by thought of 
the vast store of treasure that the valley now must 
hold, I, for my part, felt a far deeper interest in what 


THE GOLD-MINERS OF HUITZILAN. 293 


Tizoc went on to tell us concerning the men by whose 
toil the treasure had been accumulated. And, truly, 
so bitter and so dreary was the life of the Tlahuicos 
who were forced to labor here unceasingly, and through 
so long a period had they been thus cruelly dealt with, 
that it seemed to me there must rest upon all the Val- 
ley of Aztlan a heavy curse that only some signal 
act of expiation could remove. And the coincidence 
struck me as most curious that here among the Aztecs, 
wrought by themselves upon the men of their own race, 
should be found identically the same cruelties which 
the Spaniards practised upon the Indians whom they 
enslaved as miners in New Mexico: whereof came that 
fierce outburst of revolt two hundred years ago, when 
the Pueblos ravaged with sword and flame the whole 
valley of the Rio Grande from Taos to the Pass of the 
North. 

There was small ground for wonder that the Tlah- 
uicos, thus crushed by over-heavy labor, and dealt with 
as though they were not men, but fierce and dangerous 
brutes, should cherish at all times in their breasts a 
sullen fire of mutiny; nor that on every occasion at 
all favorable to their purposes there should spring 
forth from the glowing embers of their hatred a vivid 
and consuming flame. Only by the strength and the 
vigilance of the guard that constantly was maintain- 
ed over them was their tendency to rebellion held in 
check; and even the guards could not prevent frequent 
outbreaks—which ended only in the cruel slaughter of 
all concerned in them—so passionately eager was the 
longing of these desperate creatures for revenge. 


294 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


Only once, a vastly long while past, Tizoc said, had 
success attended an effort on the part of the Tlahuicos 
to release themselves from their cruel slavery, and that 
they then eluded the vigilance of their masters was 
due to their employment of strategy against force. 
The whole matter, he continued, was now but a half- 
remembered tradition, yet the main details of it were 
clear. In that far-back time a vein of extraordinary 
richness had been followed for a very long distance in 
the direction of the Barred Pass; and, as the event 
proved, the gallery was carried beyond the bars, pass- 
ing far beneath them, and so went onward, steadily 
rising, until an outlet was had into the cafion. That 
the secret of this outlet might be kept among the men 
who had opened it, these slew the guard that watched 
over them and thrust his body out into the cafion, thus 
most effectually placing it beyond the reach of the 
search that would be made for it; and the opening 
that they had made they closed carefully, and contin- 
ued a little way onward into the rock the gallery in 
which they were working: so that the superintendent 
of the mine might see clearly (what, indeed, was the 
truth) that the vein of ore had been followed to its 
end. 

Tizoc knew not how long a time passed before the 
Tlahuicos made use of the way of escape thus opened 
to them; but their flight could not have been taken 
hastily, because it included a very great number of 
them, and included also carrying with them large 
quantities of arms for warfare, and of useful house- 
hold stores. He could say certainly no more than that 


THE GOLD-MINERS OF HUITZILAN. 295 


when all their well-laid plan was ready to be executed, 
they rose against the soldiers which guarded them 
with such suddenness and brave violence that they 
succeeded in seizing and in holding the Citadel; which 
gave no chance for grave uneasiness, for the officers of 
the force thus for a moment driven off thought that 
because of their retiring within so narrow a place they 
speedily must surrender for dread of being starved 
there; and it was held to be but a sign of their still 
greater simplicity—since thus would there be more 
hungry mouths to fill—that they carried their women 
and children with them into the stronghold where they 
lay besieged. 

But so strange was the desolate silence that hung 
over the place into which so great a multitude had re- 
tired, that the besiegers presently were moved by it 
to a wonder wherein was a strong feeling of awe; and 
still greater was the marvel that they had to ponder 
upon when, at last, meeting with no opposition, they 
broke in the grating that barred the entrance to the 
Citadel, and found within the enclosure not one single 
living soul! And so cleverly had the fugitives closed 
the way behind them that a long while passed before 
it was known certainly what had become of this living 
host that, as it seemed, in a moment had vanished from 
off the face of the earth. More than half a lifetime 
went by without the shedding of light upon this mys- 
tery; and it seemed as though a ghost had risen when 
one day a very aged man came forth from that long- 
abandoned passage in the mine and surrendered him- 
self to the first of the guards whom he encountered— 


296 THE AZTEC TREASUBRE-HOUSE. 


and then told that he was a priest whom the fleeing 
rebels had carried captive with them, and whom they 
had held a prisoner through all these many years. And 
he told also how the rebels had made their home in 
a certain fair valley that was shut in and hidden among 
the mountains; and how that they had built a great 
city—resting fearless in the conviction that they were 
safe from harm. By the heavy toil that had been 
needful to open anew the way into the mine from the 
cafion, the little remnant of strength in this old man’s | 
body had been exhausted; and presently, having told 
his story, he died. 

Then it was that the Priest Captain and the Council 
who ruled in that ancient time, having assured them- 
selves by the sending out of spies that all which the 
old man had told them was true, planned to bring upon 
the rebels a very terrible vengeance; which was to 
drown them all in their city by letting loose upon them 
the waters of a mighty lake. And this plan, though its 
accomplishment was not arrived at until two full cycles 
had passed away, so mighty was the labor that it in- 
volved, at last was executed: and in one single day 
every living creature in all that valley was overwhelm- 
ed by the flood let loose into it; and where so great 
a mass of teeming life had been there remained there- 
after only the desolate silence and stillness of univer- 
sal death. 

It was with long-drawn breaths that Fray Antonio 
and I listened to Tizoc’s telling of this tradition, which 
in many ways was far more real to us than it possibly 
could be to him ; for we but lately had passed through 


THE GATHERING FOR WAR. 297 


that death-stricken valley—and ourselves had been 
like to die there—and every feature of the scene, that 
he could but vaguely describe to us, we had clearly in 
our minds. And thus we came to know the full mean- 
ing of the great catastrophe whereof we had seen the 
outworking, both in the destruction wrought by it and 
the way of its accomplishment, but of which we had 
divined no more concerning its cause than that in some 
way it must have resulted from a slowly worked-out 
vengeance prompted by a most malignant hate. 


XXVI. 
THE GATHERING FOR WAR. 


AutTHouGH the whole of the discussion of their plan 
of revolt was carried on by the Council with so calm 
a gravity, there was enough of energy and of quick 
movement when their deliberations came to an end; 
and we augured well of the result because they thus 
had delayed their action until their plan for making it 
effective had been fully matured. The whole of that 
first day in Huitzilan, and much of the following night 
also, was given to arranging clearly what must be 
done in order to set up a temporary government and 
to get an army together; and how well this prelim- 
inary work was accomplished was shown by the pre- 
cision and celerity with which the plans then made 
were executed during the immediately ensuing days. 

During this period we had ample time to look 


298 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


around us; and, being now upon a most friendly foot- 
ing with the strange people among whom we thus 
strangely found ourselves, we were heartily aided— 
so far as this was possible because of the exigencies 
of that stirring time—in investigating the manner of 
their lives. ‘he material then was obtained for my 
chapter on the ‘‘ House Life and Domestic Customs 
of the Aztecs”; and the knowledge which Rayburn 
gathered (also embodied in his own paper, that attract- 
ed so much attention when read before the American 
Institute of Mining Engineers) he has permitted me 
to use in my chapter on “Mining and Metal-working - 
among the Aztecs”; which two chapters are among 
the most noteworthy in my Pre-Columbian Conditions 
on the Continent of North America. Rayburn, in- 
deed, was lost in wonder as he came to understand 
how far scientific investigation had been carried among 
this isolated people, and how well they had learned to 
apply their scientific knowledge to their practical af- 
fairs. In many matters, to be sure, they fell far be- 
hind the remainder of the civilized world; but a large 
part of the useful knowledge that has been gained by 
study under civilized conditions elsewhere we found 
here also as the fruit of independent discovery. ‘In 
many cases the discovery was identical in every re- 
spect with our own. Thus, their process (the adding 
of hydrochloric acid to a neutral solution of auric chlo- 
ride) for producing from gold a rich purple stain, that 
was employed in the coloring of hard-wood and bone, 
was precisely that which Boyle mentioned in 1663; 
and, as nearly as I could determine the date, it was 


THE GATHERING FOR WAR. 299 


about that very time that they, also, first effected this 
combination. In the matter of hardening gold, and 
thereafter giving it all the qualities of tempered steel, 
they had made a step that was distinctly in advance 
of anything which our metallurgists had accomplished; 
and I am strongly inclined to the belief that—at least 
among the priests—knowledge had been gained of a 
process quite unlike that known to us for producing a 
gold fulminate. I was not so fortunate as to gain 
more knowledge of this matter than could be learned 
from hearsay, but from several sources I heard of the 
splitting asunder of a certain great rock by the Priest 
Captain—which wonder was accompanied by a thun- 
derous noise and a gleam of flame and a bursting forth 
of smoke—whereby he was considered to have proved 
that the aid of the gods was at his command. But to 
my mind, and also to Rayburn’s, the proof was, rather, 
that he had at his command—in some way that as yet 
our chemists have not fathomed—the aid of a gold 
fulminate that could be controlled in use as readily as 
we control gunpowder. That this agent, whatever it 
might be, was not easily available, was indicated by 
the fact that the Priest Captain never had given more 
than this single exhibition of the wonders which he 
could accomplish with it; and that it then had served 
his purpose well was shown by the obvious awe with 
which all who told me of it spoke of the dreadful 
havoc that thus visibly was wrought by what they 
termed the thunder of the gods. 

Indeed, a very serious difficulty that the leaders of 
the revolution had to overcome was the unwillingness 


300 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


on the part of the people at large to defy the power 
of their spiritual chief; which feeling among the upper 
classes was mainly because disobedience to the Priest 
Captain was, in effect, heresy ; while among the lower 
classes there was joined to a like horror of heresy a 
very lively dread of the punishment, both temporal 
and spiritual, that the Priest Captain could bring upon 
them because of his intimate relations with the super- 
natural beings by which the forces of the world were 
controlled. 

Yet out of this condition of affairs arose an oppor- 
tunity that Fray Antonio was not slow to make the 
most of. Our coming into the valley with news of 
the outside world that directly controverted the Priest 
Captain’s claim to infallibility gave a great shock to 
the religious faith of the community, and so induced 
a willingness to listen to the preaching of a new and 
purer creed. And on the part of those of the Council 
who were organizing the revolution—among whom re- 
ligion seemed to be regarded less as a vital fact than 
as a matter of political expediency—there was a strong 
disposition to encourage the spread of doctrines which 
obviously, by weakening the Priest Captain’s hold 
upon the people, would increase their own strength. 
Therefore, Fray Antonio found himself free to preach 
to this heathen multitude the glorious Christian faith ; 
and that he was granted this most rare and signal op- 
portunity, the like of which was not given even to the 
blessed Saint Francis himself, so filled and exalted his 
soul with a radiantly joyful thankfulness that he was 
as one transformed. And his holy enthusiasm, that 


THE GATHERING FOR WAR. 301 


thus made every fibre of his being vibrate with a grate- 
ful gladness, gave him also so eloquent a command of 
beseeching language that it was a living wonder to 
perceive how his inspired words penetrated into the 
minds, darkened by superstitious doctrines, of those to 
whom he spoke, and so sunk into their hearts and 
brought the restful happiness of the faith Christian 
to those who had known only the restless terror of 
idolatry throughout all their lives. Like a pure flame, 
the doctrine that he preached ran through that host 
of the heathen, burning out from among them the im- 
pure creed whereby their souls had been held in a 
most cruel and desolate bondage, and giving in the 
place thereof the tender comfort of a saving Christian 
grace. 

Yet the very fervor of Fray Antonio’s preaching, 
and the strong hold that the gentle doctrine which he 
set forth took upon the hearts of the multitude, tended 
also to stir up against him a lively enmity among those 
who, refusing to hearken to him, remained steadfast in 
the ancient faith. Many such there were among us at 
that time in Huitzilan; but because of the firm grasp 
that Fray Antonio had upon so many hearts, and also 
because of the countenance which the Council gave 
him, these did not venture to assail either him or his 
doctrine openly; yet, as I noted at times the evil 
glances which they shot forth at him—which surely 
would have killed him could he thus have been slain 
—TI was filled with dread that hate so malignant as 
here was shown must surely find expression in a direct 
attempt upon his life. Fortunately, there no longer 


302 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE, 


were any priests among us. Of these there had been 
a considerable number in Huitzilan upon our first com- 
ing there, but silently, one by one, they had disappear- 
ed—going, as we well knew, to join themselves to the 
force which the Priest Captain was gathering against 
the time when the issue between us would be settled 
by the arbitration of arms. And those who went from 
our camp to his must have carried with them news of 
the peril that menaced the ancient faith through the 
new faith that Fray Antonio preached so zealously in 
such burning words; for of his knowledge of what 
Fray Antonio was doing, and of his dread of what 
might therefrom result, we presently had proof in a 
way that filled our hearts with a very dismal fear. 

All the while that this curious, and to me most in- 
teresting, conflict between a primitive and a highly de- 
veloped religion went on, the more practical work went 
on also of establishing a new government and of organ- 
izing an army whereby it might be maintained. So far 
as the setting up of a government was concerned, the 
matter was comparatively easy; for the majority of 
the Council had come out with us from Culhuacan, and 
these had but to adapt to the requirements of the new 
situation the governmental machinery that already was 
established and at their command. And they were sur- 
prised pleasurably by finding how readily this trans- 
formation was effected; for among the higher classes 
—from which classes the officials of the government 
exclusively were drawn—the feeling of hatred against 
the Priest Captain, begotten of his many acts of cruel- 
ty and oppression, was so strong that the opportunity 


THE GATHERING FOR WAK. 303 


now offered to turn against him was seized upon most 
gladly. In every town throughout the valley the em- 
issaries of the Council were warmly welcomed; and 
presently the new government was established every- 
where save in the capital city and in certain villages 
upon the lake border lying close beneath its walls. 

The work of organizing an army, however, was a 
more difficult matter; for very serious obstacles, both 
moral and material, had to be overcome before we of 
the revolutionary faction could place an effective fight- 
ing force in the field. Of what I may term regular 
troops, that is to say, thoroughly drilled and disciplined 
soldiers, we could count upon but few; for, practically, 
the whole body of the army had remained faithful to 
the Priest Captain and was with him in Culhuacan. 
For the most part, also, the regular troops scattered 
through the garrisons of the various towns had be- 
taken themselves immediately to Culhuacan upon the 
acknowledgment by the civil officers of these towns of 
_ the authority of the new government; and at the same 
time had departed with them nearly all the priests, and 
such few persons of the upper classes as desired the 
maintenance of the ancient order of things. The result 
of which general movement at least gave us the ad- 
vantage of carrying on unmolested our own work of 
concentrating and organizing; and, so far, was a posi- 
tive service to us. 

As the nucleus of our army we had the corps that 
Tizoc commanded, the highly organized body of troops 
charged with the important duty of guarding the Bar- 
red Pass; and we had also the few hundreds of men 


304 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


who had come out with us from Culhuacan. From 
these sources we were able to draw officers to command 
the irregular force, largely made up of Tlahuicos, that 
the Council rapidly got together ; while for the organ- 
izing of the main body of our troops, the savages who 
worked in the mine, the bold stroke was made of min- 
gling them with the men who, until then, had been their 
most relentless enemies—the soldiers who had served as 
their guards. That it was possible to put in opera- 
tion this daring plan was due, I think, in great part to 
the fact that both guards and miners were led to accept 
the extraordinary fellowship that it created by a gen- 
uine shock of surprise; and before they had at all re- 
covered from their astonishment their interests became 
identical, through their common need of defending 
themselves against a common enemy, And, further, I 
am well convinced that the Tlabuicos had been in part 
prepared, before our coming into the valley, to join in 
the revolt that under any circumstances could not have 
been much longer delayed. In regard to this matter, 
Tizoc persistently evaded my questions; but I remem- 
bered very distinctly his curious hesitancy when he 
had told me of the effective part that the servile class 
could be made to take in the event of a rebellion; and 
I perceived many evidences of a secret understanding 
between him and certain of the miners during the time 
that the gathering for war was going on in Huitzilan. 
Therefore, I inferred that the seeds of revolt- which 
germinated so readily had been long since sown. 

Of all the disabilities under which we then labored, 
the most serious was the lack of an adequate supply of 


THE GATHERING FOR WAR. 305 


arms. The great arsenal of the Aztlanecas was in Cul- 
huacan; and thus nearly the whole of the supply of 
munitions of war in the valley was in the Priest Cap- 
tain’s hands. Fortunately, the shipment of hardened 
gold that we had intercepted—by landing at the pier 
whence in a few hours it would have been despatched 
to the Treasure-house—gave us a good supply of raw 
material out of which spear-heads, and the heads of 
darts, and swords could be made; and night and day 
the forges blazed in Huitzilan while the manufacture 
of these weapons went on. Of bows and arrows it 
was not possible to make many in that short time, but 
of slings there was no difficulty in making enough to 
supply our entire force—and among these people, who 
are wonderfully skilful in the use of it, the sling is a 
most deadly implement of war. We lacked time, also, 
to make any large number of shields, and our defi- 
ciency in this respect was regarded by Tizoc, and by 
all the military officers who were with us, as a most 
serious matter; for not only would our men without 
shields be the more easily slain in battle, but their 
fighting value would be lessened by their conscious- 
ness that they were without this piece of furniture 
that all savage races hold to be so necessary in war. 
However, of defensive armor we had a good supply, 
for it chanced that in the Citadel there was a great 
store of cotton cloth, suitable for making long kirtles 
of many thicknesses of cloth quilted together; which 
kirtles were arrow proof, and well protected a man 
from his neck downward almost to his knees. Young 


was disposed to think but lightly of this curious 
20 


306 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


armor, but when Tizoc, to convince him of its utility, 
demonstrated its power to resist a well-pointed arrow 
shot at very short range he was forced to confess its 
entire applicability to the purpose for which it was de- 
signed. 

“Tell th’ Colonel that I give in, an’ think it a first- 
rate notion, Professor,” he said. ‘ But if you can get 
it into his head, an’ I’m afraid you can’t, just tell him 
that when this barelegged army of ours gets fitted out 
with those little night-shirts they’ll look for all th’ 
world like a lot o’ fellows who’ve scrambled out of a 
hotel that’s caught fire in th’ middle o’ th’ night. All 
that’ll be wanted t’ make th’ thing perfect ’ll be a 
couple o’ steam fire-engines, an’ a crowd with all their 
clothes on, an’ a line of policemen. I guess it’s goin’ 
t’? be one o’ th’ funniest lookin’ armies that was ever 
seen outside of a lunatic asylum. What Id like to do, 
_ Professor, instead o’ tryin’ t’ do any fightin’ with it, is 
just t’ take th’ whole outfit back t’ th’ States an’ make 
a show of it. Pd get Benito Nichols t’ go in with me 
—he’s a first-class man, Benito is, an’ he’s a boss hand 
as a show manager—an’ we’d call it ‘Th’ Aztec War- 
rior Army an’ Circus Combination,’ an’ we’d just rake 
in th’ dollars quicker’n we could count ’em. That 
makes me think o’ that show we were talkin’ about 
makin’ with Pablo an’ his burro.” Young’s voice 
changed as he spoke, and there was a huskiness in it 
as he added: “I s’pose by this time there ain’t much 
left for show-makin’ purposes of either of ’em. No, I 
guess I’ll stay around an’ take a hand in any fightin’ 
that’s goin’ on; for I’d pretty near be willin’ t’ be killed 


THE GATHERING FOR WAR. 309 


right away after it myself for th’ chance t’ square 
things with that old devil for killin’ our boy. He was 
a good boy, Professor, an’-— How this devilish dust 
does get into my eyes an’ make ’em water.” With 
which highly irrelevant remark—for there was no dust 
blowing just then—Young suddenly ceased speaking 
and walked away. 

This was the only time that we spoke of Pablo while 
we lay at Huitzilan, for talk about the boy only in- 
creased the bitter sorrow for him that was in all our 
hearts. As for my own heart, it was wellnigh broken 
as I thought that but for me his gentle life would still 
be flowing on smoothly—as I had found it flowing 
when, in an evil hour, I joined his fortunes with mine, 
and so had brought him to so untimely and to so cruel 
adeath. And I, too, longed for the fighting to begin 
that I might avenge him; for the accomplishment of 
which vengeance I was not merely in part, but alto- 
gether ready to yield up my own life. 

Indeed, excepting only Fray Antonio, who saw in 
warfare only the wickedness and the cruelty of it, we 
all were most eager for our inaction to end, and for 
the battling to begin that would give us opportunity 
to let the life out of some of those by whom Pablo 
had been slain. It was with delight, therefore, that 
we noted the rapidity with which the preparations for 
the impending campaign were carried forward, and 
saw how each day the disorderly host that had been 
gathered at Huitzilan was changing from a confused 
mass of good fighting material into a body fairly well 
adapted to the needs of war. It was, in truth, aston- 


308 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


ishing to us—for we could not well comprehend how 
essentially warlike were the instincts of this people, 
and how quick, therefore, they must be in military 
matters—to observe the promptness that was shown 
in getting our army in readiness for the field. And 
with our astonishment came also a comforting corvic- 
tion that the force that could be so quickly, and, as it 
seemed, so effectively organized, must surely hold well 
together, and fight well together, when the hour for 
fighting came. 


XXVIL. 


AN OFFER OF TERMS. | 


Dvurine the time that our various preparations thus 
went forward we had no direct news from the strong- 
hold of the enemy; yet many vague rumors reached us’ 
of the army that was being set in order there to take 
the field against us. On the other hand, the constant 
departure from among us of those who were loyal to 
the ancient government kept the Priest Captain well 
informed of all that was in progress in our camp. No 
effort was made by the Council to prevent these de- 
partures, for all of our plans were working so well, and 
our forces were increasing so prodigiously, that it was 
to our advantage that the enemy should have news of 
our rapidly augmenting strength ; and especially was 
it hoped that the news thus carried to the city might 
incline many there who wavered in their allegiance to 
take open part with us—or, at the least, to refuse to 


AN OFFER OF TEEMS. - 309 


take part against us—and that in this way there might 
be stirred up a very dangerous spirit of mutiny within 
the enemy’s lines. 

The plan of campaign that the Council had adopted 
struck me as being an exceedingly prudent one. This 
was that we should not attempt an attack upon the 
city—for, indeed, to assail such fortifications without 
artillery would have been utterly hopeless—but should 
wait until the enemy came out to assail us, and then 
meet him on our own chosen ground. In every way 
this plan was in our favor. It most obviously was te 
our advantage to delay as long as possible the battle 
that was inevitable, and that, when it did come, must 
decide the fate of the rebellion finally. Every day that 
this was deferred was a substantial gain to us, in that 
the organization of our army was thereby rendered the 
more complete, and also in that the effective hold of 
the new government upon the people throughout the 
valley was thereby strengthened. On the side of the 
enemy, delay would produce no corresponding gain, 
rather would it tend to weaken the hold of the Priest 
Captain upon those who remained faithful to him; 
and, being shut up with his whole army and a multi- 
tude of non-combatants within those great stone walls, 
a very terrible foe, against which stone walls are no 
defence, presently would attack him in the shape of 
hunger. Therefore we had only to wait—maintaining 
the while a vigilant patrol of guard-boats on the lake, 
so that no fresh supplies might reach the garrison in 
the city—in the sure conviction that our foe would of 
his own accord come forth to give us battle, and that 


310 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


we then would have the advantage of standing whol- 
ly on the defensive until some happy turn of chance 
should so favor us that we would risk nothing in mak- 
ing an assault. 

It was a very fortunate thing for us that matters 
stood in this way; for wellnigh the whole of the train. 
ed army of the Aztlanecas was with the Priest Cap- 
tain, and against this well-disciplined body of men our 
own hastily assembled and imperfectly organized army 
would have made but a poor showing had we met on 
equal terms. Even under the existing circumstances, 
so favorable in many ways to our success, Tizoc and 
the other military officers who were with us did not 
at all disguise their anxiety as to what might be the 
outcome of the battle so soon to be fought; and espe- 
cially did they dread some well-planned stealthy move- 
ment of the enemy, by which our camp might be sud- 
denly set upon and fairly carried before our own un- 
trained forces could be rallied from the bewilderment 
and confusion into which they would be thrown by the 
shock of such surprise. 

Rayburn, who had seen a good deal of Indian fight- 
ing in his time, fully shared in this feeling of anxiety. 
“Indian fights, you see,” he said, “are not like any 
other kind of fights. The side that wins has got to do 
it with a whoop and a hurrah. Indians haven’t got any 
staying power in them. They can’t hold out against 
anybody who stands up against them squarely, and 
won't be scared by a howling rush into running away. 
That’s the reason why our little bit of an army at home 
is strong enough to police our whole Indian frontier. 


AN OFFER OF TERMS. 311 


A single troop of our boys—if the fighting’s square, 
and they haven’t been corralled in an ambush—can 
stand off a whole tribe; and they can do it because 
they just get their backs together and won’t give in. 
What bothers me about the fight that we’re going to 
have is that the regulars are on the other side. Of 
course, being Indians too, regulars like these don’t 
amount to much; but they are bound to be a long 
chalk better than this rowdy crowd of ours. We've got 
a pretty fair chance to win, because we’re in a strong 
position, and because our people mean to wait until 
the other fellows come at ’em; but I tell you what it 
is, if ever they manage to get inside here, or if ever 
we go outside after them—that is, while they’re fresh 
and full of fight —it’s bound to be all day with us. 
These miners, and the rest of this Tlahuico outfit, will 
fight like wild-cats as long as they’re on top, but every 
bit of fight will go right out of them the minute they find 
that they’re beginning to get underneath. That’s the 
Indian way. I’m trying hard to believe that our crowd 
will whip the other crowd; but I must say, Professor, 
that I’m not betting on it.” 

“Well, ’m bettin’ on it, and bettin’ on it high,” said 
Young. “I don’t pretend t? know as much about this 
sort o’ thing as Rayburn does; but I do think I know 
a live devil when I see one—an’ these miners are about 
as lively an’ about as devilly as anything that ever 
broke loose from hell. They’re just as full o’ th’ wick- 
edest sort o’ fight as they can stick in their ugly skins, 
an’ they’re just sick for a chance t’ let it get out of 
’em. All we’ve got t’ do is t’? worry th’ other crowd 


312 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


for a while by lettin’ em monkey around tryin’ t’ bag 
us; an’ then, when they’ve been pretty well shot off, 
an’ are gettin’ tired, just make a rush for ’em an’ scoop 
’em in. Regulars or no regulars, these miners ’ll go 
through ’em like a limited express; an’ th’ first thing 
th’ Priest Captain knows we'll have walloped him right 
smack out o’ th’ baggy things he wears on his feet an’ 
thinks are boots. That’s th’ size of it, Rayburn. That’s 
what’s goin’ t’ happen right here—an’ don’t you forget 
it! An’ then, if there’s any way out o’ this d——n 
valley, we'll load up with dollars an’ pull out for 
home.” 

For my own part, I was not disposed to be either 
so doubtful as Rayburn or so sanguine as Young. In 
what each of them said there was much truth, and my 
inference from such of the facts in the case as were 
within my knowledge and my comprehension was that 
the chances for and against our success were very even- 
ly divided. Had I listened only to the promptings 
of my hopes, I should have entertained no doubt what- 
ever touching the certainty of our victory; for I was 
at that time so elated by the knowledge that I had ac- 
quired, and that each day was increased by the acqui- 
sition of new and most precious facts, whereby a flood 
of light was let in upon what hitherto had been hope- 
lessly dark places in Aztec archeology, that I was dis- 
posed to believe as firmly as ever did the first Napo- 
leon in the assured ascendency of my lucky star. How- 
ever, I did not wholly permit my wits to be run away 
with by the joy begotten of my truly wonderful dis- 
eoveries; and I strove even to contemplate calmly the 


AN OFFER OF TERMS. 318 


possibility that I might myself be slain in the battle 
that was so close upon us; and that thus the exceed- 
ingly valuable information which I had acquired would 
be lost to the world, and to myself would be lost the 
honorable fame due me for having gathered it. Yet I 
regret to state—for until that time I had entertained 
unreservedly the belief that I truly was a philosopher 
—my attempt at calm contemplation of this dismal 
and far from improbable combination of evil circum- 
stances had no other effect upon me than to throw me 
into a most violent rage. It seemed to me so stupidly 
unreasonable that some mere common brute of an Ind- 
ian, by the crude process of splitting my skull open, 
might deprive me, and through me the scientific world, 
of the priceless knowledge that with much effort I had 
stored within my brain. 

Bat ali thought of my own fortunes, and of this pos- 
sible sudden cutting of my life-strings, presently was 
thrast aside by the inroad of another matter that was 
of far more serious moment to me, inasmuch as there 
was involved in it a menace against the life of one 
of my companions; and,;indeed, this matter was one 
which startled our whole camp, for it was nothing less 
than a formal offer on the part of the Priest Captam 
to condone the rebellion, and to compromise with the 
rebels, on certain far from exacting terms. 

The envoy sent to treat with us came in a manner 
befitting his dignity and the importance of his mission, 
having a considerable retinue with him in his barge, 
and being himself a grave and dignified man well ad- 
vanced in years. Two of our guard-boats accom: 


314 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


panied his barge across the lake, and he alone was 
permitted to land in Huitzilan. Being led before the 
Council, he delivered himself briefly of his message, 
and added to it neither argument nor comment of his 
own. The Priest Captain, he said, desiring to avoid 
the shedding of blood among brethren, was willing to 
forgive the wrong already committed, and was willing 
even to concede in part the demands made by the reb- 
els, in consideration of the acceptance by those now 
In arms against him of certain very easy terms. For 
his part, he would yield in so far as to restore the 
custom of permitting parents to buy back their own 
children, and so to save them from being sacrificed or 
from becoming slaves; and he would withdraw also 
his claim to the exercise of certain rights (which need 
not here be specified) in civil matters, to which a coun- 
ter-claim was set up by the Council. In return for 
these concessions, he demanded that the army raised 
by the rebels should be immediately disbanded; that 
order should be restored in Huitzilan by returning the 
miners to their work, and the Tlahuicos generally to 
their masters throughout the valley; and that the arms 
which had been manufactured should be turned over 
to the keeper of the arsenal in Culhuacan. The final 
demand made by the Priest Captain related to our- 
selves; and the Council was given to understand that 
upon its punctual and exact fulfilment the whole of 
the negotiation must depend. Young and Rayburn 
and I, the envoy said, must be thrust out through the 
Barred Pass, whence we came, and there left to shift 
for ourselves; Fray Antonio must be without delay 


AN OFFER OF TERMS. 315 


surrendered—that the dreadful sin that he had commit- 
ted by preaching vile doctrines, subversive of the true 
faith, might be punished in so signal a manner that the 
gods whom he had outraged would be appeased. 

Both Fray Antonio and I were present in the Coun- 
cil chamber when the envoy delivered his message; 
and when this final demand was made—hearing which 
made me grow sick and faint, so keen was the pang 
of sorrow that it caused me—TI turned towards him 
quickly, expecting that he also would feel the hurt of 
the blow which through him, because of my great love 
for him, had stricken me so grievously. But so far 
from being at all cast down by the knowledge thus 
rudely conveyed that avery cruel death menaced him, 
there was upon his face a look of such joyful elation, 
of such rejoicing triumph, that it seemed as though 
the very greatest happiness that life could hold for him 
had been thrust suddenly within his grasp. 

Within the Council, and outside of it also, when 
the terms which the envoy offered were spread abroad, 
there was at once aroused a very hot antagonism be- 
tween contending factions in regard to the wisdom of 
placing trust in the Priest Captain’s promises, and to 
the justice of yielding to his demands. So far as the 
Council was concerned, its members having no espe- 
cial regard for our welfare now that we had served 
their purpose, the slaying of Fray Antonio, and the ex- 
pulsion from the valley of the rest of us, were trifling 
matters which well enough might be conceded if there- 
by peace might be secured. The matter of importance 
that this body had to consider was how far the Priest 


316 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


Captain could be trusted to fulfil promises made to 
rebels in arms, when these same rebels voluntarily 
had submitted to disarmament and were at his mercy; 
and on this essential point the whole debate that fol- 
lowed turned. The faction that favored disarmament 
insisted that such yielding was not surrender, inasmuch 
as the Priest Captain had conceded all that the rebels 
had asked; while those of the faction that favored war 
rested their case on the ground that the promises of 
eoncession were made only to be broken, and that 
this sudden willingness on the part of the Priest Cap- 
tain to grant what he had heretofore so persistently re- 
fused was proof that he recognized the hopelessness 
of his position, and so was seeking to retain by craft 
the power that he no longer could hold by force. 
These latter, therefore, urged that his false promises 
should not be heeded; and that the matter at issue 
should be settled surely and finally by carrying to a tri- 
umphant conclusion the war, for the waging of which 
all needful preparations had been made. 

The debate upon this matter continued throughout 
the whole day without any conclusion being arrived 
at, and we listened to it—Fray Antonio and I trans- 
lating to the others—with a very earnest interest, in- 
asmuch as the outcome of it all might be the instant 
slaying of one of us, and for the rest of us an im- 
prisonment in wild fastnesses among bleak mountains 
for what was like to be the whole remainder of our 
lives. When night came, and the Council, being still 
unresolved, broke off its session until the day follow- 
ing, we came back to our quarters and there talked 


AN OFFER OF TERMS. 317 


over the situation, and not cheerfully, among our- 
selves. 

“Even if these fellows understood algebra,” said 
Rayburn, “1 don’t see how they could get an answer 
to the problem that they’re trying to work. All the 
x’s that ever were made are not enough to represent 
an unknown quantity like the Priest Captain; and it 
simply is not in the conditions of the case that they 
possibly can know what allowance to make for the 
factor of error. For the last three hours, as far as I 
can make out, they’ve just been talking in a circle, 
and going over and over the same ground. The size of 
the business is that half of them believe the Priest Cap- 
tain is telling the truth, and the other half believe that 
he is lying. This is a matter of conviction; it is not a 
thing that they can argue about. As far as I can see, 
there is nothing to prevent them from keeping on talk- 
ing without getting anywhere for the next twenty 
years.” 

“Well, all I can say,” said Young, “is that if theyll 
put me in th’ cab, an’ let me run their train for ’em, 
Tl get it up this grade in no time; an’ what’s more, 
I'll just take it down th’ other side o’ th’ divide a-kitin’! 
What’s th’ matter with th’ Priest Captain, an’ only 
half of ’em have th’ sense t’ see ’t, is that he’s just 
solidly lyin’. He’s been lyin’ to ’em from away back, 
I reckon ; an’ he’s lyin’ to em now; an’ he’ll keep 
on lyin’ to ’em right smack along till he gets t’ th’ 
end of his run. If they’re fools enough t’ believe him 
they’re bound ¢’ get left th’ worst kind. They’ve got 
him in a hole now, an’ he knows it—an’ that’s more’n 


318 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSK. 


they do, t’? judge from th’ way they’re goin’ on. I did 
have some respect for that Council. So far, they’ve 
managed things first-rate. They’ve run in advance 0’ 
their schedule right along, an’ they’ve kep’ up a rattlin’ 
head o’ steam with mighty d n bad coal. But if 
they really mean t’ draw their fires, just when they 
ought t’ put on th’ forced draught an’ let her go for 
all she’s worth, I must say I haven’t any more use for 
’em. Seein’ ’em shilly-shallyin’ around like they’re 
doin’ now, when they ought t’ be takin’ their coats off 
an’ sallin’ in, just makes me sick !” 

Fray Antonio—whose habit of quiet was such that 
he rarely sought to take part in the talks that we had 
in English among ourselves—somewhat surprised me 
by asking me to translate to him what Young and Ray- 
burn had been saying; and when he had heard it all 
he was silent for a while, and evidently was engaged 
in earnest thought. At last, speaking very gravely, he 
asked us if we greatly feared being thrust out from 
the valley in case the Council decided to accept the 
Priest Captain’s terms; and without giving us a chance 
to answer, he bade us remember that we had not at all 
explored the last valley that we had passed through 
before we entered the cafion that ended at the Barred 
Pass, and that from it there well might be some outlet 
through which we could return to the civilized world; 
and even were we forced to end our days in it, he con- 
tinued, speaking quickly and urgently, a much worse 
fate might come to us; for the valley was a bright and 
beautiful one, as we had seen, and had in it an abun- 
dant supply of food. Would living there, he asked, be 


AN OFFER OF TERMS. 319 


any worse for us than living where we then were— 
where we were equally shut in? And even supposing 
that the war ended in victory for us, and that our al- 
lies gave us entire freedom of action, what more could 
we do than end our days in the Valley of Aztlan, or 
else go back to that other valley and search for an 
outlet thence whereby we could get into an open way 
among the mountains, and so once more to our homes? 
And then, still denying us opportunity to answer, he 
went on to speak of the pain and misery and despair- 
ing sorrow that the threatened war would bring; and 
then, more gently, of the duty that pressed upon us 
of averting this calamity, that was also a crime, even 
though to do so we must sacrifice hopes and wishes 
very dear to our hearts. 

“What th’ dickens is th’ Padre drivin’ at, anyway ?” 
Young exclaimed ; “I don’t ketch on at all.” 

“No more do I,” said Rayburn. “It’s a first-rate 
sermon that he’s giving us, but I don’t see where he 
means the moral of it to fetch up.” 

For myself, so closely were Fray Antonio and I 
bound together by bonds of sympathy, I saw but too 
plainly what he meant should be the outcome of his 
discourse; and I was not surprised, therefore—though 
hearing thus plainly expressed in words what I had 
been dreading, sent a dull, cold pain into the very 
depths of my heart—when he unfolded to us the whole 
of the plan that he had been forming within his mind. 
What he said was said very simply, and with a loving 
sorrow for the pain that might come to us through 
shaping our actions in accordance with his strong 


320 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


desire; and this desire was: that, of our own free-will, 
we should retire from the valley by the way that we 
came thither, and so leave the Council free to accept 
unhesitatingly the Priest Captain’s terms. 

“ And what of yourself?” I asked; for I felt within 
me a strong conviction that for himself he had in view 
a very different fate. 

He hesitated for a moment before answering me, and 
his color changed a little; and then an unwonted rud- 
diness gave animation to his face, and a light of glad 
and strong resolve shone in his eyes as he replied, in a 
voice that was very low, and at the same time very 
clear and firm: “I shall go to the Priest Captain, in 
Culhuacan!” 

“‘ And so go to your death,” I said, speaking broken- 
ly, for the pain that his words caused me went through 
me like a knife-thrust. 

‘Say, rather,” Fray Antonio answered, “that I go 
to win the life, glorious and eternal, into which neither 
death nor sin nor sorrow evermore can come!” 


XXVIII. 
THE SURRENDER OF A LIFE. 


Knowine as I did Fray Antonio’s resolute nature, 
and understanding far more clearly than it was possi- 
ble for the others to understand the heroic impulses 
which stirred within him, I took no part in the attempt 
that they then made to oppose the purpose which he 


THE SURRENDER OF A LIFE. o2l 


had declared. But when they somewhat shifted their 
position—perceiving how hopeless was their effort to 
shake by argument his firm resolve—and sought to win 
him to their way of thinking by consenting to leave the 
valley if only he would accompany them, then I most 
earnestly joined my entreaties to theirs. But no more 
by entreaty than by argument was Fray Antonio to be 
moved. | 

And, in truth, there was a logical consistency in what 
he urged in answer to us that, much though we might 
resent it, we yet were compelled to respect. He had 
come with us, he said, for the single purpose of preach- 
ing the saving grace of Christianity to heathen souls 
which otherwise would perish utterly in their idolatry. 
And this was not a matter wherein he had any right of 
election, but was a solemn duty that the vows by which 
he was bound compelled him to fulfil. He was not 
free, therefore, as we were free, to consider side issues 
relating to his personal well-being or to mere expe- 
diency ; his sole endeavor must be to accomplish by 
the most efficient means the duty wherewith he was 
charged. It was evident, he urged, that should there 
be war in the valley the chance for the further spread 
of Christian doctrine would be scant; for the seed that 
he had sown, and that already was well rooted in many 
hearts, would die quickly and be utterly lost in the foul 
growth of evil passions which would spring up rank- 
ly amid this bloody strife. But if the war could be 
averted, not only would these people be spared the 
misery that war must bring upon them, and the crime 
also of slaying each other, but their hearts would 

Bb 


322 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


remain open to the gentle doctrine that he had taught; 
and his willingness—should such sacrifice be necessa- 
ry—to yield his life that peace might be preserved, 
would force upon them strongly the conviction, tend- 
ing thus to their own strengthening, of his faithful 
trust in the creed which he avowed. And it well might 
happen, he said, that such grace would be given him 
that even within the very stronghold of the heathen 
faith he might win souls to the purer faith which it 
was his glorious privilege to preach and still remain 
unharmed; in proof of which possibility he cited the 
case of the blessed St. Januarius, whom the lions re- 
fused to devour. But whatever might be the outcome 
of thus yielding himself into the Priest Captain’s hands, 
his duty was so clear, he declared firmly, that no eva- 
sion of it was possible. And what he purposed doing, 
he said, finally, was but what countless of his brethren 
had done in the course of the six centuries since the 
founding in Assisi of the Order to which they and he 
belonged—and precisely was it what was done by the 
glorious proto-martyr of Mexico, San Felipe de Jesus, 
who boldly carried the Christian faith among the hea- 
then, and so died for that faith upon the cross in Japan. 

Rayburn was far from willing to yield to this line 
of argument; yet he understood it, as I did also, and 
perceived that it was the only logical outcome of the 
only premises which Fray Antonio would recognize. 
Young, on the other hand, did not in the least under- 
stand it, and Fray Antonio’s reasoning simply threw 
him into a rage. 


“It’s all d n nonsense,” he said, “for th’ Padre 


THE SURRENDER OF A LIFE. 323 


t? talk about his duty towards a set o’ critters like th’ 
Priest Captain’s crowd. What’s th’ life o’ that whole 
outfit worth compared t’ one life like his? He might 
just as well sit down an’ chop his own head off as go in 
among those fellows; an’ he knows it, too. I never 
heard o’ th’ man he’s talkin’ about who didn’t get eat 
up by th’ lions—somebody in th’ show business, I s’pose 
—but if he thinks there’ll be anything worth speakin’ 
of left of him two hours after he gets back into that 
city, he’s makin’ a pretty d n big mistake. Oh, I say, 
Professor, we’ve got t? stop this. Th’ Padre’s off his 
head, that’s all there is to it; an’ we’ve got t’ look after 
him till he braces up an’ gets sensible again. [ll do 
anything reasonable that he wants, but I'll be d d 
if I’m goin’ t’ stand by doin’ nothin’ while he cuts his 
own throat !” 

Young was quite ready, I am sure, to resort to the 
radical measure of clapping Fray Antonio into a strait- 
jacket; and had the opportunity arisen for bringing 
their difference of opinion to a practical issue I am 
confident that we should have witnessed an exceeding- 
ly curious conflict, in which heroic self-devotion would 
have struggled with a rough but very honest love. 
And that Fray Antonio anticipated such a conflict was 
shown by his taking effective measures to render it im- 
possible. During the remainder of that day he stead- 
fastly refused to discuss the matter further; not harsh- 
ly, but by shifting away into other channels our earnest 
talk. Only at night, before we lay down to sleep, of 
his own motion he turned once more to the matter; 
and when he briefly had exhibited to us again the 


324 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


motives which urged him forward upon a way so peril- 
ous, he begged that we would not think ill of his insist- 
ing upon traversing our wishes, but that once more we 
would clasp hands with him in sign of our forgiveness 
and continued love. 

So tender was the mood that came upon us with his 
gentle words that none of us well could answer him; 
and this he understood as in turn we took his hand and 
strove to utter that which was in our hearts, and only 
could say huskily a word or two, of which the mean- 
ing was conveyed for the most part by the sorrow and — 
the longing that were in our tones. Young’s natural 
instincts were wholly opposed to any display of the 
softer emotions, and for shame of the weakness that 
in this case he could not help but show, his face and 
neck flushed red, and he declared that he had the tooth- 
ache. And then, as a vent for his overwrought feel- 
ings—of all things in the world—he fell to cursing the 
Superintendent of the Old Colony Railroad: on the 
ground that but for this functionary, who most unjus- 
tifiably had discharged him, he never would have come 
to Mexico at all! 

For my own part, I was well convinced that Fray 
Antonio meant then to say good-bye to us; and for a 
long while, as I lay awake that night, my thoughts 
went backward over the time that we had been com- 
panions together, and so dwelt upon the faithfulness 
of his friendship, and upon his gallant bearing in all 
times of peril, and upon the pure and perfect holiness 
which characterized his every act and word. Into the 
future I dared not let my thoughts wander, for I 


THE SURRENDER OF A LIFE. 325 


could foresee no outcome to the purpose which he had 
planned so resolutely but a dreary sorrow that would 
rest heavily upon me through all the remainder of my 
days. And at last, worn out by my own grief, I fell 
into a troubled sleep. 

The faint gray light of early morning shone dimly 
in the room as Rayburn awakened me by shaking my 
arm; and the first words which he spoke to me were, 
“The Padre is not here!” 

As I roused myself fully, and sat up and looked into 
his face, I saw by the look that he gave me how fully 
he shared the dread that was in my heart. Young still 
was sleeping, and we waited to rouse him until we 
should make sure that what we feared must be the 
truth really was true. Together we went out quietly 
into the court-yard and so to the main entrance of the 
building, where a guard was stationed. But this man 
was asleep; and when I wakened him, and questioned 
him as to whether the monk had gone forth, he could 
give me no answer. Therefore we went on to the gate 
of the Citadel—which gate, being a vastly heavy grat- 
ing, raised and lowered by chains, was not usually 
closed even at night—in the hope that there we might 
gain some certain knowledge. And here also we found 
all of the half-dozen men on guard slumbering, saving 
only one man, who seemed to have been aroused by 
the sound of our footsteps, and who raised himself on 
one elbow and looked at us with a sleepy curiosity. 

Even the urgency of the quest that we were upon 
did not suffice to distract our attention from the peril 
that we all were in because of the slumbering of these 


326 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


sentries. “If this is a specimen of the way all the 
watches are kept,” Rayburn said, angrily, “we stand 
a pretty good chance of being murdered in our beds. 
It all comes of trying to make soldiers out of savages. 
These Tlahuicos will fight well enough, I never doubt- 
ed that, but to put such men on guard is simple 
idiocy. They have been slaves all their lives, and they 
haven’t the least notion in the world of personal re- 
sponsibility. It’s a lucky thing that we have found 
out their methods, for I shall give the Colonel a talk- 
ing to about putting on guard some of his own men 
who can be trusted. It’s clear that these fellows can- 
not tell us anything. We'd better keep on down to 
the landing; if the Padre has gone”—there was a sud- 
den break in Rayburn’s voice as he said these words 
—““it’s pretty certain that he has gone by water, and 
we may come across somebody down there who hap- 
pened to be awake and saw him start.” 

There were slight signs of wakefulness beginning to 
show themselves as we went down towards the water- 
side; a few doors already were open; here and there 
thin threads of smoke curled upward through the still 
air; around a fountain a half-dozen women were clus- 
tered, drawing water in great earthen pots, and chatter- 
ing together softly in half-drowsy talk. At the pier, 
however, we found some people who really were wide- 
awake: fishermen just returned with a boat-load of 
fish that they had caught in the lake. And these, when 
I questioned them, in a moment resolved all of our 
troubled doubts into a sad certainty. Only an hour 
before, as they lay out on the lake, a canoe had passed 


THE SURRENDER OF A LIFE, S27 


them paddled by a single Indian, and in the canoe 
they had plainly recognized Fray Antonio. It was im- 
possible that they should be mistaken, they declared, 
for the habit which the monk wore made him very 
plainly recognizable ; and they had observed him with 
a particular care, for they had been greatly surprised 
by perceiving that the canoe was heading directly for 
“the great city”—by which name all save the priests 
were accustomed to speak of Culhuacan. 

Neither Rayburn nor I spoke, as we walked back 
together through the town to the Citadel. Our hearts 
were altogether too full for words. Even I, who had 
been in part prepared for Fray Antonio’s departure by 
the tenor of his speech with us the night before, had 
not anticipated his going from us so suddenly to what 
surely must be his death; and to Rayburn his depart- 
ure came with the startling force of a heavy and unex- 
pected blow. Young was awake when we returned, 
and was in much anxiety concerning us; for our cus- 
tom at all times was to hold closely together, and he 
knew that something out of the common must have 
happened to make us break through this very necessa- 
ry rule; and his fears were further aroused when he 
perceived the sad gravity of our faces, and that Fray 
Antonio was not in our company. Yet, though thus 
prepared to learn that evil of some sort had overtaken 
‘us, he was not at all prepared to learn how great that 
evil was. When, therefore, we told him of what we 
had discovered, which gave absolute assurance that 
Fray Antonio had carried out his purpose of surren- 
dering himself into the Priest Captain’s hands, Young 


328 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSBE. 


stared at us for a moment in a dazed sort of way, as 
though by no means grasping the meaning which our 
words conveyed. And then the whole meaning of them 
seemed to come to him suddenly, and he burst forth 
into such a raving volley of curses that it seemed as 
though he were fairly maddened by his ungoverned 
rage. 

I envied Young, as I am sure Rayburn did also, the 
relief that must come to him with this rough but frank 
and natural expression of his bitter grief. For our- 
selves, we stood sad and silent, yet with our hearts al- 
most breaking within us, as we thought how small was 
the chance that ever in this world should we see the 
face of Fray Antonio again. 


XXIX. 
THE ASSAULT IN THE NIGHT. 


Nerraer the Council, in its irresolute parleyings, nor 
Fray Antonio, in his resolute action, had at all consid- 
dered certain factors which they themselves had inter- 
jected into the problem that they then were dealing 
with from such widely different stand- points and in 
such widely different ways. The Council, at a stroke, 
had transformed the Tlahuicos into soldiers, and had 
given the promise that in reward for their faithfulness 
and valor these slaves thenceforward should be freemen. 
Fray Antonio had preached to all those assembled at 
Huitzilan a creed that had taken strong hold upon 


THE ASSAULT IN THE NIGHT. 329 


many hearts, and that especially had won the hearts 
of those of the long-oppressed servile class—to whom 
its doctrine of equality seemed to hold out an absolute 
assurance that their life of slavery was at an end. 

When, therefore, the terms which the Priest Captain 
offered were spread abroad through the town, and 
through the camp close beside the town in which the 
army lay—being there in readiness instantly to occu- 
py the Citadel should the enemy appear—a very lively 
anger was aroused because such terms should even be 
listened to. For what the Priest Captain demanded 
was that the apostle of the new religion should be re- 
linquished to him to be slain as a sacrifice to the Aztec 
gods, and that once more the Tlahuicos should be thrust 
back into slavery ; while what he conceded—in that it 
affected only the higher classes—made the lot of the 
Tiahuicos but the more unjustly cruel and hard to bear. 

And those who resented the delay on the part of the 
Council in sending back the Priest Captain’s envoy 
with a sharp denial, presently went on from hot words 
to violent deeds; being directly led from mutinous 
talk to mutinous action by the knowledge that the 
Council had so far accepted the offered terms as to send 
Fray Antonio to the great city to be slain—for not one 
among them could be led for a moment to believe, 
so impossible from their stand-point did such an act 
appear, that the monk truly had gone thither of his 
own free-will. 

Practically, the whole army was involved in the 
movement that then took place ; for even its officers, 
while not of the servile class, dreaded the punishment 


330 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


that their revolt might bring upon them, and so pre- 
ferred to take the chances of the war rather than to 
yield themselves to be dealt with as the Priest Captain 
might dispose. Therefore it was, on the day that Fray 
Antonio departed from us, that all the soldiers together 
marched in from their camp and massed themselves 
compactly about the Council Chamber within the 
Citadel, and then with loud cries demanded that the 
envoy should be sent back to the great city with an 
absolute refusal of the offered terms. Thus was there 
created a rebellion within a rebellion; and one that the 
Council was powerless to put down, for the reason that 
practically the whole of the force which it had created 
to serve against the enemy was now risen against its 
own authority with a most masterful strength. 

In the case that thus was presented there was no 
opportunity to temporize. The fierce, wild creatures 
of whom soldiers suddenly had been made stood there 
before the Council Chamber, shouting and waving 
their spears angrily and clashing together their arms. 
And so they continued, without one moment of quiet, 
until their will was obeyed. Through the savage and 
tumultuous throng the envoy was led forth—his looks 
showing plainly his very natural expectation that his 
life would be let out of him amid that ferocious com- 
pany—and so down to the water-side ; and thence was 
sent back again to Culhuacan with the firm assurance 
—which message of defiance the soldiers themselves 
dictated—that the terms offered by the Priest Captain 
would be accepted only when all the Tlahuicos then 
risen together in arms against him had been slain! 


THE ASSAULT IN THE NIGHT. 331 


“Bully for th’ Tlahuicos !” cried Young, as I trans- 
lated to him these ringing words. ‘Just tell em, Pro- 
fessor, that P’ve volunteered for three years or th’ war, 
an’ that they can count on me t? keep up a full head o’ 
steam as long as there’s any fightin’ t’ be done. Ac- 
cordin’ t’? my notions, now that th’ Padre’s over there 
in th’ city—t’ say nothin’ o’ what we owe’em on Pablo’s 
account — th’ row can’t begin one minute too soon. 
These Tlahuicos are th’ boys for me! Didn’t I tell 
you that nobody could stop ’em when they once got 
fairly started? They’re a tough lot; but they’re just 
everlastin’ rustlers—an’ their style suits me right now 
all th’ way down t’ th’ ground floor!” 

The sharp excitement attendant upon this vigorous 
action gave place, as the day wore on, to a dull heavy 
pain as our thoughts dwelt upon the fate that Fray 
Antonio had gone forth to meet, and upon our present 
powerlessness to defend him in any way againstit. Al- 
though the envoy had been sent back, and war was 
now resolutely determined upon, the situation remained 
unchanged in so far as concerned the necessity of our 
waiting for the Priest Captain to take the initiative. 
To attack that great walled city was so hopeless a task 
that even the Tlahuicos—flushed though they were by 
their victory over the Council—did not venture to 
propose it; for they knew, as we all did, that our only 
chance of carrying the enemy’s stronghold lay in first 
defeating its garrison in a battle in the open field. 
Yet this dull inaction of waiting was a source of grave 
danger to us, in that it tended to wear out the spirits 
of our men and to make them still more careless of their 


332 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


guard. What Rayburn and I had seen that morning 
had shown how little trust could be placed in them, in 
so far as the soldierly attribute of watchfulness was 
concerned ; and Tizoc, with whom we conferred in re- 
gard to this important matter, had little to say that we 
found comforting. Being himself a thorough soldier, 
he perceived the danger to which the unsoldierly lack 
of vigilance on the part of the Tlahuicos exposed our 
camp; but the situation was such that he was power- 
less to take effective measures for our protection. The 
few regular troops in our little army were not enough 
to do sentry duty everywhere, and the best that could 
be done would be to dispose them at the points most 
open to attack—‘“ And then trust to luck,” Rayburn 
put in, rather bitterly, “that the enemy will be polite 
enough to try to surprise only the part of the eamp 
where the sentries are awake !” 

Partly that we might see for ourselves how our 
pickets were disposed, but more that by action of any 
sort we might divert our thoughts from the sorrow 
that was gnawing at our hearts, we walked out togeth- 
er in the late afternoon to the rocky heights of the 
promontory that on the western side of the town ex- 
tended far into the lake. From a military stand-point 
this position was of great importance to us, inasmuch 
as bowmen or slingmen gaining access to it could com- 
mand a considerable part of the town, and even could 
annoy very seriously the garrison of the Citadel ; and 
it also was of value to us as a place of lookout whence 
an attacking party coming by way of the lake from the 
eity could be perceived while yet it was a long way off. 


THE ASSAULT IN THE NIGHT. 333 


We were surprised, therefore, when we had come 
well out upon the promontory, that no sentinel chal- 
lenged us ; but our surprise vanished a moment or two 
later as we perceived one of our men curled up com- 
fortably against a sunny rock and apparently sound 
asleep. However, as we got close to the man it was 
clear to us that his sleep was one that he never would 
waken from, for a pool of blood stained the rock be- 
side him, and an arrow was shot fairly through his 
heart. We made but a short stop beside this fellow— 
who plainly had been shot in his sleep, and so deserved 
the fate that had overtaken him—and then went for- 
ward anxiously that we might see how the other senti- 
nels stationed hereabouts had fared. The result of our 
quest was as bad as it could be; for in one place or 
another among the rocks we found all five of the men 
who had been posted upon the promontory, and all of 
them were dead. Three more of them certainly had 
been shot while asleep or wholly off their guard, as 
was shown by the easy attitudes in which we found 
them sitting or lying among the rocks. The fifth had 
not been instantly killed; as we inferred from finding a 
broken arrow sticking in his left arm, and some signs 
of a struggle about where he lay, and a great split in 
his skull, as from a sword stroke, that finally had let 
the life out of him. It struck us as strange that this 
man had not aroused the camp with his shouts; but 
his post was at the extreme end of the promontory, so 
that he must have called very loudly in order to be 
heard ; and it was possible that in the suddenness of 
his danger he never thought to call at all. However, 


334 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


the important matter, so far as we were concerned, was 
that these five sentinels had been slain close beside the 
town and in broad daylight, and that but for the chance 
of our coming out upon the promontory the most impor- 
tant of our outposts would have remained unguarded 
until the night relief should have come on. It was 
Rayburn’s theory that the plan of the enemy was to 
place has own men on the vacant posts—trusting to 
the reasonable certainty that in the dusk of evening 
one naked Indian would look much like another—and 
so despatch the relief, one by one, as the guard was 
changed. 

Of those of the enemy who had accomplished this 
piece of work so skilfully we could see no sign—unless 
it were a boat that we dimly saw a long way off on the 
lake, and that presently wholly disappeared in a bank 
of haze ; and despite the hot sunshine basking upon us 
a chill went through me at thought of the stealthy dar- 
ing and truly devilish cunning of the men who thus 
could do their evil work in the full light of day, and 
close to the encampment of an army, and yet could get 
safely away without leaving a trace of their presence 
save the dead bodies of their foes. 

Having made sure by carefully searching among the 
rocks throughout the length of the promontory that 
none of the enemy was hidden there, we hastened back 
to the town to tell what we had come upon, and to pro- 
vide for mounting fresh sentinels in the place of those 
who had been relieved by death. We had expected 
that the news which we brought would stir up a great 
commotion ; and we were not a little troubled, there- 


THE ASSAULT IN THE NIGHT. 335 


fore, knowing how serious the matter was in its exhi- 
bition of the carelessness of our guards, by finding that 
only Tizoc and a few other tried soldiers were more 
than lightly discomposed by what we had totell. The 
general feeling seemed to be—inasmuch as our lucky 
discovery had dispelled the danger—that there was no 
need to worry about a calamity which had not occurred; 
and what after all was the most essential consideration 
—the constant danger that threatened us by reason of 
the criminal laxity of the watch maintained by our 
pickets — practically was lost sight of. Apparently 
neither the Council nor the higher officers of the army 
had the power to remedy this dangerous condition of 
affairs. At no time had any very strong authority 
been exercised over the Tlahuicos—for all the orders 
which until now had been given to them had been 
directed only towards urging them along a way that 
they were glad enough to follow of their own accord— 
and, since their assertion of their will that morning, 
what little control had restrained their waywardness 
seemed to have been wholly lost. 

However, as there was a chance in it of fighting, and 
as fighting was what they longed for earnestly, our un- 
ruly soldiers were willing enough that a strong detach- 
ment should be placed in ambush on the promontory, 
to the end that the force which the enemy probably 
would land there that night might be summarily dealt 
with. And the better to carry out our plan of a coun- 
ter-surprise the dead sentinels were left where we found 
them. Tizoc was given the command of the ambushed 
force, and he willingly granted our request that we 


336 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


might accompany him; which request was prompted 
by the desire that we fully shared with the Tlahuicos 
to get at close quarters with the enemy, and also by 
the conviction that in Tizoc’s company—though in his 
company we were like to have hot fighting and plenty 
of it—we would have better chances of safety than 
anywhere else in all our camp. 

For this expedition we put on for the first time our 
armor of quilted cotton cloth; and the look of these 
garments certainly did justify Young’s comments upon 
them. “It’s a pity we can’t get photographed now,” 
he said, “‘so’s t’ send our likenesses in this rig home t’ our 
folks. You’d just jolt the Cap Cod folks, Rayburn, with 
that pair o’ telegraph poles you call your legs stickin’ out 
from under th’ tails o’ that thing that looks like a oross 
between a badly made frock-coat and an undersized 
night-shirt. And I guess your college boys ’d be jolted, 
too, Professor, if they could get a squint at you. And 
I s’pose that if some o’ th’ hands on th’ Old Colony 
happened t’ ketch up with me dressed this way they’d 
think I'd gone crazy. But I haven’t got anything t’ 
say against these little night-shirts except about their 
looks. When you get right down t’ th’ hard-pan with 
’em, they’re a first-rate thing.” 

For three American citizens, belonging to the nine- 
teenth century, we certainly presented a strange ap- 
pearance, and appeared also in very strange company, 
as we marched out from the town late that afternoon 
with Tizoc and his men. Each of us carried half a 
dozen darts, and strapped around our waists, outside 
our cotton-cloth armor, we each wore a maccahuitl— 


THE ASSAULT IN THE NIGHT. 337 


the heavy sword with a jagged double edge that we 
knew from experience was an excellent weapon when 
wielded by a strong hand. Indeed, Young and I car- 
ried the darts rather to satisfy Tizoc than because we 
expected to make any very effective use of them, and 
all of our reliance both for assault and defence was 
upon what we could do with our swords at close quar- 
ters. Rayburn, however, had been practising dart- 
throwing very diligently, and as he naturally was an 
extraordinarily dextrous man he had made rapid prog- 
ress in this savage art. The soldiers in our company, 
naked creatures, lithe and sinewy, were armed for the 
most part with spears and slings ; and the officers wore 
each a sword and carried each a handful of darts. 
As we all stepped out briskly together I could not but 
think how amazed would be the President of the Uni- 
versity of Michigan, and my fellow-members of the 
Faculty of that institution of learning, should they 
happen to encounter me in that barbarous company, 
and arrayed in that most barbarous garb ! 

It was a little before sunset when we reached the 
place that Tizoc had selected for our ambush upon the 
promontory; and an hour later, just as the shadows of 
evening were beginning to fall, one of our lookout men 
reported that a large boat—of which the oars must be 
muffled, for no sound came from it—was pulling around 
a point just beyond where we lay. There was a little 
stir among our men when this news was received, and 
a shifting and arranging of weapons, so that all might 
be in readiness when the moment for opening the am- 
bush came; but we had a picked force with us, each 

22 


338 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


man of which fully understood how necessary was si- 
lence to the success of our plans, and the quick thrill 
of movement was so guarded that it scarcely ruffled 
the deep stillness of the night. 

But the moments lengthened out into minutes, and 
the minutes slowly slipped by until a full hour had 
passed, and the thick darkness of tropical night was 
upon us, and still there was no sign of a foe. Tizoc 
grew uneasy, for it was evident that we were in error 
in our conception of the enemy’s plan. Had he intend- 
to mount his own men as sentinels in place of our men 
whom he had slain, and then get safe possession of the 
promontory by killing the relief as it came on, we 
should have been long since engaged with him; but 
here the night was wearing on, and, excepting only the 
boat that our scouts had seen, there had been nothing 
to show that the attack which we had expected so con- 
fidently was anything more than a creation of our own 
fears. Yet our only course was to remain where we 
were until morning; for some accident might have 
delayed the attack, and the necessity of holding the 
promontory was so urgent that we could not take the 
risk of withdrawing our force. 

It was weary work sitting there in the darkness, 
after all the weariness of so exciting a day, and as the 
hours dragged on I found myself now and then sinking 
into a doze, for which I reproached myself; yet also 
excused myself by the reflection that I did not at all 
profess to have either the training or the instincts of a 
soldier, but had been brought up, as a man of peace 
and as a scholar, in accordance with the sound principle 


THE ASSAULT IN THE NIGHT. 339 


that night rationally is the time set apart for sleep. 
It was from a most agreeable nap—in which I was 
dreaming pleasantly of my old life in Ann Arbor—that 
I was roused suddenly by Rayburn’s quick grip upon 
my shoulder, and by his sharp whisper, “ What’s that ?” 

In an instant I was thoroughly awake, and as I bent 
forward and listened intently I heard very distinctly a 
faint cry of alarm, that seemed to come from a long 
way off. Tizoc, I perceived—for he had risen to his 
feet—also was most eagerly listening ; and I heard a 
slight sound of movement and of arms clinking as our 
men roused themselves, showing that they also had 
heard that warning cry. 

But in a moment there was no need to strain our 
ears to catch the sounds which came to us. The cry 
that a single throat had uttered was taken up by a 
thousand; and so grew into a dull, distant roar, that 
pierced the black and sullen stillness of the night. And 
with this came also the higher notes of savage yells, and 
then we heard the clash of arms—which evidence that 
fighting was going on, no less than the direction whence, 
as we now perceived clearly, the sounds came, assured 
us that while we had maintained our watchful guard 
on the promontory the enemy had surprised our camp. 

Rayburn sprang up with a growl like that of a sav- 
age beast. “By G——d!” he cried, “they meant us to 
do just what we’ve done, and we’ve walked into their 
trap like so many d——n fools!” 


340 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


XXX. 


THE FALL OF THE CITADEL. 


Tizoc, I was glad to see, had his men well under his 
eommand, as was shown by the orderly manner in which 
they waited, despite their eager impatience to be off, 
until he gave the commandto march. And hard march- 
ing we found it, as we floundered about that rough, 
rocky place, tripping and stumbling, and now and then 
hearing a crash in the darkness as one of our men went 
down. But, somehow or other, we certainly managed 
to get over the ground very rapidly; and all the while 
the sounds of the fight that was raging hotly struck 
with a constantly increasing clearness upon our ears. 

The whole width of the town lay between our camp 
and the foot of the rugged path that led down from 
the promontory; but when we were fairly in the streets, 
and no longer had rough rocks to stumble over in the 
darkness, we went forward at a very slashing pace. 
And we were further helped now by the fact that day 
was breaking, so that we could see clearly where we 
were going ; and we had also within us that feeling of 
cheer and encouragement that ever is given to man by 
the return of the sun. In but a few minutes more, in 
that tropical region, a flood of daylight would be about 
us; and Tizoc’s hope was that when the horror of dark- 
ness, ever appalling to barbarians, should be lifted, and 


THE FALL OF THE CITADEL. 341 


when our coming should afford a firm centre to rally 
around, our army might regain the courage and stead- 
iness which it had lost in the terror and bewilderment 
of a night surprise. 

But he quickly found that this hope was doomed to 
disappointment. Only a little beyond the gate of the 
Citadel we came upon a flying body of Tlahuicos— 
though no pursuers were in sight beyond them—and 
these were so completely demoralized that they took 
our company for a detachment of the enemy, and with 
wild cries fled away from us down a side street and 
s0 disappeared. “ What do you think of your friends 
now?” Rayburn asked Young, grimly. But Young’s 
only answer was to curse the vanished Tlahuicos for 
cowards. 

A moment later the whole street in front of us was 
filled with a howling mob of our men, and these came 
surging towards us with the evident intention of seek- 
ing safety in the Citadel. Tizoc saw at a glance the 
hopelessness of trying to rally a rout like this until the © 
terrified creatures, fleeing like sheep from a pack of 
wolves, had been given rest for a while in some safe 
place where their courage might return to them. Be- 
ing once within the Citadel they would be for a time 
wholly out of danger; for even should the enemy try 
to set scaling-ladders in place, and so break in upon us 
there, it would be an easy matter for a few determined 
men to hold the walls until some sort of order had been 
restored among our broken forces. Tizoc therefore 
promptly wheeled our little force aside into an open 
space, and so made a way for the struggling crowd 


342 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


to sweep past us. We noted, as the stream of terror- 
stricken men flowed by, that their officers were not 
with them; from which Tizoc drew the hopeful augury 
that the officers, being all trained soldiers, had drawn 
together into a rear-guard that sought to cover this 
wild retreat. And presently we found that Tizoc was 
right in his inference, for soon the crowd began very 
perceptibly to grow thinner, and the sound of loud 
cries and the rattle and clashing of arms rang out 
above the tumult, and then there came around a turn 
in the street, a little beyond where we had halted, a 
compact body of men who were falling back slowly, 
and who were laying about them most valiantly with 
their swords. Our party gave a yell, by way of put- 
ting fresh heart into these gallant fellows, and Tizoc 
quickly disposed our company in such a manner that 
the retreating force fell back through our midst; and 
then we promptly closed in, and so took the fighting 
to ourselves. 

I cannot tell very clearly how our retreat to the Cit- 
adel was managed, nor even of my own part in it; for 
fighting is but rough, wild work, which defies all at- 
tempts at scientific accuracy in describing it—and for 
the reason, I fancy, that it engenders a wholly unsci- 
entific frame of mind. Reduced to its lowest terms, 
fighting is mere barbarity; a most illogical method of 
settling some disputed question by brute force instead 
of by the refined reasoning processes of the intelligent 
human mind; and by the anger that it inevitably be- 
gets, the habit of accurate observation, out of which 
alone can come accurate description, is hopelessly con- 


THE FALL OF THE CITADEL. 343 


fused. Therefore I can say only that foot by foot we 
yielded the ground to the enemy that pressed upon 
us; that wild shouts rang out—2in which I myself 
joined, though why I should have shouted I am sure I 
do not know—together with the sharp rattle of clash- 
ing swords; and that through the roar of this outburst 
of fierce sounds there ran an undertone of groans and 
sobs from the poor wretches who had fallen wounded 
to the ground. The one thing that I remember clearly 
is a set-to with swords that I had with a big fellow, 
just as we had come close to the Citadel, that ended in 
a way (that would have surprised him mightily had he 
lived long enough to comprehend it) by my finishing 
him by means of a stop-thrust followed by a beautiful 
draw-cut that was a famous stroke with my old sabre- 
master at Leipsic. And I well remember thinking, at 
the moment that I made this stroke—and so saved my 
life by it, for the fellow was pressing me very closely— 
how happy it would have made the old Rittmeister 
could he have seen me deliver it. 

As we made a rush for the gate of the Citadel, that 
we might get inside this place of safety and drop the 
grating before the enemy could follow us, we were sur- 
prised by finding many of our own men lying dead 
about the entrance; and what was far worse for us, 
we found that unskilled hands had been at work with 
the machinery whereby the gate was lowered and by 
their bungling had managed to start it downward in 
such a way that it had jammed in the grooves. What 
actually had happened there, as we knew afterwards, 
was that the first of the cowardly wretches who had 


344 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE, 


entered the Citadel had tried to drop the gate in the 
faces of their companions and so secure their own safe- 
ty; whence a fight among themselves had sprung up, in 
course of which many of them very deservedly were 
slain, and, most unhappily for us, their frantic efforts 
to lower the gate had resulted in thus disabling it. 

We had a moment of breathing space before the 
enemy came up with us, and in this time Rayburn and 
Young andI had a grip of each other’s hands, in which, 
without any words over it, we said good-bye to each 
other; for we neither of us for one moment doubted 
that our last hour had come. ‘Tizoc stood a little dis- 
tance from us, as steady and as gallant in his bearing 
as ever I saw a man; but that he also counted surely 
upon dying there was shown by the glance of grave 
friendliness that he gave us, and by his making the 
gesture that among his people is significant of fare- 
well. Then we ranged ourselves across the gate-way, 
holding our swords in hand firmly, and Rayburn, who 
had caught up a javelin, stood with it poised above his 
shoulder in readiness to discharge it as the enemy came 
on. The sight of his splendid figure towering defiantly 
in that heroic attitude set my mind to running upon the 
Homeric legend of the glorious battling of the Greeks 
before the gates of Troy, and of Hector uplifting the 
rock; and I was very angry with Young, whose dis- 
position to seize upon the whimsical side of everything 
was the most irrepressible that ever I came across, 
when he exclaimed: “T’ll bet you five dollars, Ray- 
burn, that when you throw that clothes-prop you don’t 
hit th’ man you fire at !” 


THE FALL OF THE CITADEL. 345 


But Rayburn did hit his man, straight in the heart 
too,a moment later, as the enemy with a wild yell 
charged us; and then, with his back set well against 
the wall, he fell to work most gallantly with his sword. 

From the very beginning of it we knew that our 
fighting was utterly hopeless; for all of our company 
together did not number fifty men, and we were con- 
fronting there a whole army. Up the street, as far as 
we could see, the troops of the enemy were solidly 
massed; and for every man whom we struck down 
twenty were ready to spring forward, fresh and vigor- 
- ous, to exhaust still further the strength that rapidly 
was leaving us. That we fought on was due not to 
our valor but to our desperation; and also—at least 
such was my own feeling—to a swelling rage that 
made us long to kill as many as possible of these sav- 
ages before we ourselves died beneath their blows. 
Death, we knew, was the best thing that could happen 
to us; for it would save us from the worse fate, that 
surely would come to us should we be captured, of 
being turned over to the priests, that they might tor- 
ture us before their heathen altars, and in the end tear 
our still quivering hearts out. And that the wish of 
our enemies— according to the Aztec custom —was 
rather to capture us than to kill us was shown by the 
way in which they fought; for all their effort was to 
disable us, and so to take us alive; nor did they seem to 
have any great care, if only this purpose could be ac- 
complished, how many of themselves were slain. 

Sometimes in my dreams the wild commotion of that 
most desperate combat comes back tome. I see again 


346 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


before me the crowd of half-naked men, curving in a 
semicircle measured by the length of my sword, their 
faces distorted by the passionate anger that stirred 
their souls; and I see one fierce face after another lose 
out of it the look of life, yet not the look of hate, as 
my sword crunches into the vitals of the body to which 
it belongs; and I hear the wild din around me, and 
the yells of rage and of pain, and my feet tread in 
slippery pools of blood, and my body aches with wea- 
riness, and sharp thrills of agony dart through the 
strained muscles of my right arm—yet still I fight on, 
and on. And, truly, all this seems more real to me 
now in my sleep than it did to me then in its reality; 
for a dull weight of most desolate hoplessness settled 
down upon me as I fought out to the end that most 
hopeless battle—so that my spirit shared in the numb- 
ness of my body, and I cut and parried and gave men 
their death-blows with the stolid energy of a mere 
death-dealing machine. 

It had been from the first no more than a question of 
minutes how long this unequal fight would last; and 
when I heard a great yell from the enemy, and per- 
ceived a flood of soldiers swirling inward through the 
gate-way just beyond the fellows whom I was dealing 
with, I knew that Tizoc’s men had been beaten down 
or slain, and that the end was very near at hand. As 
I glanced across the shoulders of the man whom I just 
then put forever on the list of the non-combatants, I 
saw what seemed to be an eddy in the midst of the 
erowd that was rushing into the Citadel; and in the 
thick of the tightly knotted group that thus choked 


THE FALL OF THE CITADEL. 347 


the narrow way I saw Tizoc still laying about him 
with his sword. He was a very ghastly object, for a 
cut on his head had loosened a piece of his scalp, that 
hung down over his forehead and waved and trembled 
there like a draggled plume; his face was bathed in 
blood from this horrid wound, and his armor of cotton 
cloth was soaked with the blood that had run down 
upon it from the cut in his head, and also from a wound 
in his neck. In the moment that I had free sight of 
him he made as fine a sword-stroke as ever I saw, 
wherewith he fairly severed from its body the head of 
one of his assailants; and at the very same instant, 
while that head still was spinning in the air, a man 
direetly behind him forced back the pressing crowd by 
main strength and so gained a free space in which to 
swing his sword. I shouted to Tizoc to warn him of 
the danger, and he half turned to ward against it; but 
before he could turn wholly around the blow had fallen, 
splitting his whole head open from the crown to the 
very chin. And in the midst of the fierce yell of tri- 
umph that went up as this cowardly stroke was deliv- 
ered there passed from earth the soul of as brave and as 
true a man as earth has ever known. 

A dizziness came over me as I saw Tizoc fall, and 
saw in the same moment the wild rush forward of the 
enemy over his dead body into the Citadel; and so I 
suppose that what with this dizziness and my great 
weariness I must have dropped my guard. I faintly 
remember hearing a shout of warning from Young, who 
was elose beside me, which shout mingled with the 
shrieks of those inside the Citadel whom the enemy 


848 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


everywhere were cutting down, and the great roar of 
victory that went up from all the army, both within and 
without the Citadel, rising tempestuously in mighty © 
waves of sound: and then a crash like that of a thun- 
der-bolt burst directly upon my head, and a sicken- 
ing pain shot through me, and I seemed to be falling 
through untold depths into vast gloomy chasms (so 
that I thought I was dropping once more into the 
hollow darkness of the cafion), and there was a very 
dreadful surging and roaring and ringing in my ears; 
and then all this horror of evil sounds grew fainter, 
and I felt myself slipping quickly into the awful still- 
ness and blackness that I surely thought must be the 
entrance-way to death. And with this thought a numb 
sort of gladness came over me, for in death there was 
promise of restfulness and peace. | 


XXXL 
DEFEAT. 


AFTER all, the life that I thought was lost, and had 
but little sorrow for the losing of it, slowly came back 
to me again. For a good while before I recovered 
consciousness fully, I understood a little of what was 
going on around me by sounds which, no doubt, were 
loud and ringing, yet which seemed to me to come 
faintly from a long way off. They plainly were the 
sounds of fighting—of weapons rattling together, of 
shouts and yells and death-cries—but I did not associ- 


DEFEAT. 349 


ate them with our present battling, but thought that 
we still were in the cafion, and were still fighting those 
wild Indians by whom poor Dennis was slain. And I 
knew that I had been hurt badly; for in my head was 
a throbbing pain so keen that it seemed like to split 
my skull open, and my stomach was stirred by most 
distressing qualms, and my weakness was such that 
I could not ease the sore muscles of my body by mov- 
ing by so much as a hair’s-breadth from the cramped 
position in which I lay. 
It seemed to me a vastly long while that I remamed 
in this dreary condition of half-consciousness, with ne 
certain knowledge of anything save the pain that I 
suffered ; and then I felt some one touch me, and a 
hand laid upon my heart; and this touch so far roused 
me that I heaved a long sigh and slowly opened my 
eyes. For a moment I did not know the face that I 
saw bending over me; nor was this wonderful, for in 
place of its usual ruddiness was a death-like pallor, 
that was the more marked by contrast with the blood 
that trickled down over it from a great gash across 
the brow whereby the bone was laid bare. But there 
was no mistaking the voice that called out: “He’s 
alive, Rayburn!” and added, “I don’t see what right 
he’s got t’ be alive, either, after a crack like that. I 
guess studyin’ antiquities must everlastin’ly harden 
an’ thicken a man’s skull!” 

“Studying engineering doesn’t harden a man’s leg, 
anyway,” I heard Rayburn answer. “That cut pretty 
near took mine off. But now that we’ve stopped the 
bleeding I guess I’m all right. I think I can work 


350 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


over to you on my hands and knees and help you with 
the Professor. Now that I know he’s alive I seem to 
be a lot more alive myself.” 

“ Just you stay where you are,” Young called back, 
sharply. ‘If you move you'll start that bandage an’ 
Pll have t’ tie you up all over again. T’ll attend t’ th’ 
Professor.” And then Young bent over me, and, with 
a tenderness that I never would have thought his 
rough hands capable of, set himself to bandaging my 
wounded head. But the best thing that he did for 
me was to give me a draught of water from a gourd 
that had been slung about the neck of one of the sol- 
diers lying dead there; which draught, with the com- 
fort that the cool wet bandage about my head gave 
me, brought back to me so much of my strength that 
I was able presently to sit up and look around. 

Truly, a more ghastly sight than that which my eyes 
then rested upon I never saw. The gate-way of the 
Citadel was a very shambles. Piles of dead men lay 
all around me; and the prodigious number of the ene- 
my lying slain there testified with a mute eloquence 
to the desperate fashion in which our handful of men 
had fought. Over the rough pavement, down the slope 
towards the lake, there flowed a stream of bright 
red blood that in places shone a brilliant vermilion 
where it was touched by the glintings of the sun. 
Among the dead I did not see Tizoc’s body, and for 
this I was glad. Half a dozen of the enemy stood by 
us aS a guard; but these suffered us to minister to 
each other, evidently feeling that no great amount of 
caution was necessary in dealing with three badly 


DEFEAT, 351 


wounded men. Indeed, these guards, in their way, 
manifested a kindly feeling for us; for when they per- 
ceived that our gourd of water was empty one of them 
picked up another full gourd from amid the dead and 
handed it to us. From inside the Citadel there still 
came a tumult of fierce sounds which gave proof that 
though the battle—if it could be called a battle—was 
ended the work of killing still was going on; but these 
sounds sensibly diminished while we lay there waiting 
to know what fate would come to us, and we concluded, 
therefore, that there remained no more rebels to be 
slain. 

Rayburn was seated upon the ground at no great 
distance from me, his back propped against the wall. 
As he saw that I was looking towards him, and had 
again my wits about me, he greeted me with a very 
melancholy smile. “It’s been a pretty cold day for 
us, Professor,” he said, “and there’s no great comfort 
in knowing that it’s partly our own fault that these 
fellows have laid us out. I didn’t give them credit for 
such good tactics; and even with the bad watch that 
we kept I don’t see how they managed to get their 
men round on the other side of our camp. Well, it 
must please them to know how straight we walked into 
the trap that they set for us, like the pack of fools that 
we were.” 

“You won’t ketch me joinin’ in any more Indian 
revolutions, anyway,” Young put in. “I did think I 
could bet on those Tlahuicos, an’ they’ve just gone 
back on us th’ worst kind. Do you feel strong enough, 
Professor, to tie th’ ends o’ this rag?” He had been 


352 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


binding up the cut in his forehead, and he now got 
down on his hands and knees in front of me, and bent 
his head down within easy reach of my hands; and 
my strength had so far returned to me that without 
being very tired after it I was able to make the ends 
of the bandage fast. The blow on his head had 
glanced from the skull, luckily; but it had been heavy 
enough to stun him for some minutes after he received 
it—and his falling as though dead had been the means, 
no doubt, of saving his life, even as in the same man- 
ner my life had been saved. Jayburn’s wound was a 
worse one than either Young’s or mine, for a great 
gash in his thigh had wellnigh cut his leg off, and un- 
til, with Young’s help, he had improvised a tourniquet, 
from a bowstring and a broken fragment of a javelin, 
he had been in great danger of bleeding to death. 
For more than an hour we were suffered to lie in 
the gate-way; while the work went on of slaying the 
wretched Tlahuicos, and then of marshalling the more 
important personages who had been reserved alive as 
prisoners, and, finally, of restoring order in the victori- 
ous ranks. At the end of this time an officer with a 
squad of men came to where we were lying, and rough- 
ly ordered us to rise, to the end that we also might be 
placed among the prisoners. Young and I had so far 
recovered our strength that we managed to scramble 
on our feet with no great difficulty; though in my case 
this exertion, which made the blood flow more briskly 
in my veins, suddenly increased so greatly the pain in 
my head as to bring upon me for a little while a dizzi- 
ness that compelled me to lean against the wall for 


DEFEAT. 353 


support. In Rayburn’s case standing was quite out of 
the question; and I shortly told the officer in what 
manner he was wounded, and that to make him rise 
and walk assuredly would start the bandage on his leg, 
and so lead to his quickly bleeding to death. There- 
upon the officer gave an order to some of his men to 
fetch a stretcher such as their own wounded were car- 
ried in; yet at the same time he said to me: “This 
companion of yours ts a brave man; and but for my 
orders, I would loosen the bandage with my own hands, 
and so let him die without further pain ;” which speech, 
notwithstanding the obviously kind intention of it, I 
did not translate to Rayburn at that time. 

While we waited for the stretcher to be brought, 
the soldiers fastened about Young’s neck and about 
mine heavy wooden collars, which set well out over 
our shoulders and were not unlike great ruffs. I con- 
fess that for my own part my professional interest in 
this curious piece of gear entirely overcame my repug- 
nance to wearing it, for I instantly recognized it as 
the cuauh-cozatl, with which, as the ancient records 
tell us, the Aztecs were accustomed to secure their 
prisoners of war. But Young, who could not be ex- 
pected to share in my delight at seeing actually alive, 
and ourselves made party to it, a custom that was sup- 
posed to have been extinguished for more than three 
centuries, grew exceedingly indignant at having thus 
placed about his neck what he coarsely described as 
“an overgrown d n goose-yoke.” Nor was I at 
all successful in my attempt to soothe him by telling 
him that the discomfort to which we were subjected 

23 


354 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


was a very trifling matter in comparison with the gain 
to the science of archeology that flowed from this pos- 
itive identification of an exceedingly interesting his- 
torical fact. 

“Oh, come off, Professor,” he growled. ‘“ What th’ 
d 1 do I care for historical facts, or for historical 
lies either ?—an’ they’re all about th’ same thing. What 
I want t’ do is t’ punch th’ head o’ th’ fellow who put 
this thing on me, an’ I can’t. They'll be hangin’ me 
up by my heels an’ stickin’ a corn-cob in my mouth 
next, I s’pose, an’ makin’ a regular stuck-pig out o’ me; 
an’ then likely enough you'll try t’? make me believe 
that that proves something or other that nobody but 
you thinks ever happened, an’ so want me t’ feel pleased 
about it. Antiquities be d d! [ve had as much 
of ’em as I want, an’ more too!” And, being deliver- 
ed of these rudely expressed and very narrow-minded 
opinions, Young lapsed into a moody silence. 

While the collars were being placed about our necks, 
and while Rayburn was being lifted upon the stretch- 
er which the soldiers had brought, we heard from with- 
in the Citadel the sound of drums tapping, and then the 
measured tread of soldiers marching; and as we look- 
ed through the gate-way we saw that the troops had 
been formed in regular order and were moving towards 
us. At the head of the column were the prisoners— 
numbering three or four hundred, and all wearing 
wooden collars about their necks—covered on both 
flanks by a strong line of guards. They were ranged 
in order of their dignity, the unlucky members of the 
Council coming first, and after them the other officers 


DEFEAT. 355 


of that short-lived government; then the military 
officers, and in the rear a few private soldiers, The 
fact that no Tlahuicos were among the prisoners led 
me to conclude that such of these as had not been slain 
had been held under guard until they might be re- 
turned to their owners or set again to toiling hope- 
lessly in the mine. 

The importance that in the estimation of our cap- 
tors attached to ourselves was shown by their placing 
us at the very head of the column, in advance even of 
the members of the Council; and this was a compli- 
ment that we willingly enough would have declined, 
for such honorable consideration, according to the cus- 
toms of this people, meant surely that we were re- 
served for a very exemplary fate. But we were in no 
position to raise objections of any sort just then, and 
we therefore fell into the place assigned to us and tried 
as well as we could to show a bold front as we went 
downward towards the lake. 

Only a few terrified women and children, who fled 
away as we advanced, were in sight as we passed 
through the streets of the town; and from many of 
the hovels came the moans of poor wounded wretches 
who had crawled to their miserable homes to die in 
them; and from others came the lamentations of wom- 
en over their dead; and in nooks and corners, whither 
with their last strength they had dragged themselves, 
we saw men lying dead in pools of their own blood. 
But down by the water-side there were live men in 
plenty, soldiers and oarsmen, and the pier was crowd- 
ed with them; while out beyond the pier the whole 


356 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


bay was swarming with the boats in which the enemy’s 
forces had stolen down upon us in the darkness from 
Culhuacan; making their landing, as we now learned, 
just beyond the town in a bay that ran up close to 
where our army was encamped. And this scene of 
bustling activity in the bright sunshine made a joyous 
and brilliant picture ; that was all the brighter because 
of its setting in that sunlit bay, opening out between 
beaches of golden-yellow sand upon the broad expanse 
of restful water which fell away in gleaming splendor 
into a bank of soft gray haze. 

But the picture was still more stirring that we saw 
as we looked landward, when the barge that we were 
put aboard of pulled out from the pier and our rowers 
lay on their oars, and so waited while the work of 
embarkation went on. Right in front of us was the 
broad central street of the town; and the whole length 
of this, from the pier to the Citadel, was filled with a 
solidly massed body of soldiers that came down the — 
steep descent slowly, and halting often, to the boats 
which were in waiting to bear them away. Barbarians 
though they were, these soldiers made a gallant show- 
ing. In front of each regiment was borne its feather 
standard, and in the midst of each company was its 
rallying flag of brightly painted cotton cloth. The 
higher officers wore wooden casques, carved and paint- 
ed in the semblance of the heads of ferocious beasts; 
the cotton-cloth armor of all the officers was decked 
with a great variety of strange devices, wrought in 
very lively hues, and similarly strong hues were used 
in the decoration of the universally-carried light round 


DEFEAT. 357 


shields. And all this brilliant color, the more vivid 
because of its background of bare brown skins, was 
flecked with a thousand glittering points of light where 
the sunshine sparkled on swords and on spear-heads of 
hardened gold. 

“Tt’s not much wonder that those:‘fellows got away 
with us,” Rayburn said, as he watched the orderly 
manner in which the disciplined ranks moved out upon 
the pier and stepped briskly into the boats at the word 
of command. “They’re as fine a lot of fighters as I 
ever saw anywhere. Just look how steadily they stand 
at a halt, and how sharply they obey orders, and how 
well set up they are! I must say I don’t see what the 
Colonel could have been thinking about when he said 
that we had a fighting chance against an army like 
that. Well, he’s paid for his mistake about as much 
as & man can pay for anything. It breaks me all 
up to think that the Colonel is dead. He was good 
all the way through. And I wonder what will become 
of that little lame boy of his now? They'll make a 
Tlahuico of him, 1 suppose. By Jove! what a mess 
we've made of this whole business from first to last !” 

My heart was too heavy for me to answer Rayburn 
save by a nod; for while he spoke the thought came 
home to me very bitterly that upon me rested the re- 
sponsibility of the black misfortune in which he and 
Young were involved; and with this came also a great 
burst of sorrow as I thought how still more closely at 
my door lay Pablo’s death—for Rayburn and Young 
at least had come into my plans with a reasonable un- 
derstanding of the danger to which they exposed them- 


358 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


selves; but Pablo, having no such knowledge, had fol- 
lowed me unquestioningly because of his loving trust 
that I would hold him safe from harm. My sorrow 
concerning Fray Antonio was keen enough, Heaven 
knows; but in his case I had the solace of knowing 
surely that he had come to his death not because of 
my urging, but in pursuance of his own strong desire. 
There was a little comfort in the thought that even 
one of these four lost lives could not be charged to my 
account; and yet this reflection seemed only to make 
my sorrow heavier as I thought of the woful weight 
of my responsibility for the other three. 

For nearly two hours we lay there in the bay while 
the embarkation of the prisoners and the troops went 
on—our boat moving farther out from the pier from 
time to time as the double line of boats behind it 
lengthened. In that sheltered place there was little 
wind blowing, and the blazing heat of the sun beating 
down upon my wounded head gave me so sharp a pain 
that I gladly would have died to be rid of it; and I 
could see, from the drawn look of their faces, that 
Young and Rayburn were suffering not less keenly. 
We were thankful enough, therefore, when at last the 
embarkation was completed—more than half of the 
army remaining in Huitzilan to restore order there— 
and we pulled out from the bay into the open waters 
of the lake and were comforted by the light breeze, 
which yet brought with it a delicious refreshment, that 
was blowing there. 

All the bright beauty of that lovely lake was around 
us, having for its background the green meadows and 


EL SABIO’S DEFIANCE. 359 


the darker green of the forests hanging above them 
on the upward slopes, and beyond all the towering 
height of the cliffs, which shaded in their colorings 
from delicate gray to dark brown, and were touched 
here and there by patches of black shadow where 
some great cleft opened; and yet all that we then 
thought of was that across those blue waters, which 
gleamed golden in the sunlight, we were going swiftly 
to a cruel death, and that the cliffs, whereof the beau- 
ty was hateful to us, irrevocably shut us in. Which 
gloomy feelings pressed upon us throughout that dis- 
mal passage, while all our oarsmen pulled stoutly to- 
gether, and we went gliding onward over the sunlit 
waters towards the evil fate that we knew was wait- 
ing for us within the dark walls whereby was encircled 
the city of Culhuacan. 


XXXII. 


EL SABIO’S DEFIANCE. 


Wuitez yet we were a long way off from the city, 
we heard faintly the yells of triumph with which the 
watchers above the water-gate gave notice to those 
within the walls of the return of the victorious army; 
and from all the boats of our flotilla there went up a 
shrill chorus of answering yells. Our barge was the 
first to pass through the water-gate, out from which 
we had come so gallantly so short a time before, and 
thence went onward across the basin to the very pier 


360 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


that we had started from with such high hopes to 
gather the forces for the rebellion that had come to so 
sorry an end. 

All the water-side was black with the crowd that 
had gathered to watch our landing; but, considering 
that these people were there to welcome a victorious 
army, it seemed to me that they were strangely still 
and dull. There was, to be sure, no lack of yelling, but 
it came for the most part from a company of priests 
clustered on the pier where we landed, and from 
the soldiers and oarsmen in the boats—not from the 
townsfolk at large. And when we were marched up- 
ward through the city—following the same street that 
we had fought our way along when last we traversed 
it—I saw in the crowd so many sullen and dejected 
faces that it seemed to me there still was in that city 
a good deal of material for the making of another 
mutiny. 

This time we were not taken to the house in which 
we had met the Priest Captain, and whence we had 
been delivered from imprisonment by Tizoc’s gallant 
rescue of us; but, passing a little beyond this house, 
we were led up a broad stair-way to the plateau which 
crowned the city, and on which stood the great Treas- 
ure- house that also was the temple in which the Azt- 
ianecas housed their most venerated gods. And I 
confess that my delight at seeing closely this building, 
that until then I had beheld only from afar off, for a 
time completely overcame the dread and sorrow that 
had oppressed me; and the very strongest desire that 
stirred within me just then was for a tape-measure 


EL SABIO’S DEFIANCE. 361 


and a pair of compasses and a steel square, together 
with the opportunity to fall to work with these several 
instruments upon those mighty walls. Indeed, I almost 
had forgotten that I was a prisoner, and was like to 
die soon a very dreadful death, when a groan that poor 
Rayburn gave—wrung from him by the pain that he 
suffered in being carried up the stairs—recalled me 
suddenly to a realizing sense of our situation, and so 
pressed home upon me the sad conviction that the 
science of archeology would gain nothing of all that 
I might see or learn during the little while that I 
should remain alive. 

The outer facing of the plateau, like that of the 
terraces below it, was a prodigiously heavy wall of 
squared stones set in cement; and for a coping this 
wall had great stones carved in the similitude of ser- 
pents’ heads, with mouths wide open, that instantly 
recalled to my mind the like enclosure that the Span- 
iards found surrounding the principal temple in the 
city of Tenochtitlan—and I had a sudden strong long- 
ing that my friend Bandelier might be with me at that 
moment to see how precisely his very ingenious specu- 
lations concerning the snake-wall about the great Teo- 
calli were here confirmed. 

Through a portal formed of two huge blocks of stone 
carved to represent two serpents coiled upon them- 
selves, the heads meeting above in a sort of arch (not 
a true arch, for each of these serpents was a monolith, 
and was supported wholly on its own base), we entered 
the large enclosure before the temple. I was sur- 
prised to find —for of such a thing among the ancient 


3862 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


Aztecs there is no record—that in the centre of the 
enclosure the rock had been hewn away in such a fash- 
ion as to create a vast amphitheatre; and that this was 
the place where sacrifice was offered by the priests was 
shown by the blood-stained altar in the centre of it, 
to which fragments of flesh also adhered, whence was 
wafted up to us a dreadful stench that instantly rack- 
ed us with queasy qualms. Save directly in front of 
the entrance to the temple, where was a great stone 
balcony with a smaller balcony below it, all the sides 
of the amphitheatre were cut in steps, which made, 
also, benches where the multitude could sit at their 
ease and behold the bloody work going on in the pit 
below them; and so enormous was this rock-hewn cav- 
ity that fully forty thousand people could at once be 
seated there. Under the balcony there was visible the 
entrance to a dark tunnel-like passage, that evidently 
communicated with the temple, and a smaller passage, 
not large enough for a man to pass through, slanted 
downward to where it opened on the terrace below; 
which last was to drain the blood away, and also to 
free the amphitheatre from water in the season of rains. 

We held our noses as we skirted this shocking place, 
and we were glad enough when we got beyond it and 
came to the entrance to the temple—a very noble por- 
tal, severely simple, and because of its simplicity the 
more majestic, in which, as in the whole of the fagade, 
was manifest the grave and sombre Egyptian feeling 
that I had before observed. Through this we passed 
into the shadowy interior, lighted by only a few narrow 
slits cut in the enormously thick walls, where the lofty 


EL SABIO’S DEFIANCE. 363 


roof was upheld by a wilderness of columns which open- 
ed before us seemingly endless vistas where an eter- 
nal twilight reigned. Of interior decoration there was 
nothing save a broad and simple panelling upon the 
walls, and the great pillars were mere round monoliths 
without either bases or capitals. 

As we entered this, to them, most sacred place a 
hush fell upon our escort, and even I felt something of 
that reverent awe that is inspired by any building 
which has been sanctified by the worship of multitudes 
within it through countless years. But that Young did 
not at all share this feeling with me was made mani- 
fest by his observing, after taking a long look around 
him: “ Well, this wouldn’t answer for a Congrega- 
tional church, anyway. There ain’t a pew in th’ whole 
place, an’ here in broad daylight you couldn’t see a 
hymn-book if you tried. I wonder what they’d say, 
Professor, to a bid for puttin’ in a dynamo for’em an’ 
lightin’ this dark old hole with electricity? An’ it’u’d 
take off a lot o’ this chill an’ dampness if they’d have a 
steam-heater put in at th’ same time. It’s enough t’ 
give all hands rheumatism th’ way cold creeps strike 
up your legs.” But at this point Young’s observa- 
tions were cut short peremptorily by the hand that one 
of the guards laid across his mouth; which hint that 
it was desirable for him to keep silence was quite un- 
mistakable. 

This decided repression of Young’s chattering, no 
doubt, was the more vigorous because we now were 
approaching the farther end of the temple, where 
loomed before us amid the shadows a great idol, set 


364 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


upon an altar-like throne. This figure, fully ten feet 
high, was a strange medley of grotesque and hideous 
carvings that yet in its entirety was like a man; and 
so cruel and so ferocious was the general air of it that 
it well might inspire a very lively terror in simple 
souls. The most striking feature of the figure was a 
dismal skull, that was outheld from the region of the 
waist by two great hands placed there arbitrarily and 
without any relation to the figure’s arms; and for a 
crest—repeating the motive of the gate-way—it had 
two serpents’ heads, the bodies pertaining to which 
were twisted and involved about the whole mass. For 
eyes this evil thing had large and gleaming green 
stones—being, in truth, emeralds, though I did not at 
that time recognize them as such—and golden ser- 
pents, very beautifully wrought, were twisted about it, 
and a collar of golden hearts was hung around its neck 
over a sort of apron of shining green feathers; and 
feathers of a like sort rose above the heads of the ser- 
pents in a thick plume; and over every part of the 
figure were scattered glittering objects—emeralds, and 
disks of gold, and scraps of mother-o’-pearl, and frag- 
ments of obsidian—whence shone through the heavy 
shadows faint, shimmering points of light. In one of 
its out-stretched hands the figure held a bow, and in 
the other a bunch of arrows; but even without these 
unmistakable attributes I should have known from the 
skull and from the serpents’ heads that this fierce and 
hideous idol represented the god Huitzilopochtli: the 
first divinity, and throughout the whole time that their 
bloody religion endured, the principal divinity, that 


EL SABIO’S DEFIANCE. 365 


the ancient Mexicans adored. Young did not venture 
to speak aloud again, but he turned to me with a long 
sigh and whispered, earnestly, “That certainly is, Pro- 
fessor, the very d——dest thing I ever saw !” 

As I knew, it was in keeping with the Aztec 
customs that prisoners taken in war thus should be 
brought first of all before the god Huitzilopochtli, that 
they and their captors together might do him rever- 
ence; therefore, I was not surprised when a priest 
came forth from behind the altar and bade us pros- 
trate ourselves in adoration of the idol. As this order 
was given, all the Aztlanecas with us bowed them- 
selves to the floor; but Young, who did not under- 
stand the order, and I, who felt my gorge rising at 
the thought of thus humbling myself, remained erect. 
However, we did not continue through many seconds 
in that position; for a couple of soldiers instantly laid 
hands upon each of us, and by shoving our shoulders 
sharply forward, and at the same moment kicking our 
legs from under us, they summarily laid us face down- 
ward at full length upon the floor. As for Rayburn, 
they seemed to be satisfied with his recumbent posi- 
tion upon the stretcher; at any rate, they suffered him 
to remain as he was. 

While I lay prone, quivering with rage at the double 
indignity of being thus roughly handled, and of being 
compelled even in form to worship a disgusting idol, 
I heard an odd little pattering upon the stone floor, and 
then something cold and clammy was thrust against 
my hand, and at the same instant I heard close beside 
me a curious snuffling noise ; and while a glad doubt, 


366 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


that I scarce ventured to give way to, was rising 
within me, the clammy thing was taken away from 
my hand, and there straightway rang out through the 
gloomy silence of the temple a thunderous braying 
that seemed fairly to shake the walls. There was no 
mistaking the voice of the friend who with this tri- 
umphant blast welcomed me; and as I heard it there 
came into my heart a sudden glow of hope that Pablo, 
and that even Fray Antonio also, might still be alive. 
And this hope was destined to be immediately and 
most joyfully realized, for as we rose to our feet again 
I saw the lad standing, with El Sabio beside him, not 
a dozen feet away from me; and a little beyond them 
was the monk, his face all lighted up with a bright 
look of happiness and love. And seeing these three 
once more standing alive and well before me was the 
most amazing and also the very gladdest sight that 
ever met my eyes. 

It was a sore trial to me that I could not immediate- 
ly hold converse with Pablo and with Fray Antonio, 
and so come to know through what adventures they 
had passed, and by what miracles their lives had been 
saved; but the ceremony in which our captors were 
engaged was but half completed, and the better to as- 
sure our orderly conduct during its continuance we 
were kept asunder in the procession that then was 
formed—the object of which procession, as my knowl- 
edge of the Aztec customs led me rightly to infer, 
was that the ceremonial of triumph might be ended by 
leading us thrice around the sacrificial stone. And in 
truth I dreaded less the fate which this leading us 


EL SABIO’S DEFIANCE. 367 


about the altar of sacrifice implied was in store for us 
than I did the close association, made necessary by the 
ceremony, with the direful stench which that vile altar 
exhaled. 

At the edge of the amphitheatre, where already the 
evil odor was almost overpowering, the soldiers who 
had charge of us relinquished us—as it seemed to me, 
most thankfully—to a company of the temple priests; 
whereof the chief was a round, fat little man, whose 
shortness of legs very obviously was accompanied by 
a corresponding shortness of wind. He was, in truth, 
a most hopelessly undignified little personage; yet he 
did his best to assume a look of dignity as he waddled 
down the steps in advance of us, and he manfully en- 
deavored to conceal the difficulties encountered by his 
short fat legs in the course of this descent. And I was 
glad enough that we had his absurd performances to 
distract our minds a little from the dismalness of our 
surroundings, and especially from the queasiness that 
again beset our stomachs as our noses were assailed 
more and more violently by that most evil smell. The 
priests, I observed, had cotton stuffed in their nostrils; 
but for us there was nothing for it but to hold our 
noses tightly with our hands. 

El Sabio, who had a most generous and broadly 
open nose, and who was not blest with hands to hold it 
fast with, grew restive as the first whiff struck him; 
which resulted less, I suppose, from the intrinsic vile- 
ness of the smell than from the fact that he, in common 
with all peace-loving animals, had aroused in him an 
instinctive terror by the odor of blood. Pablo’s voice, 


368 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


and Pablo’s touch, possibly might have soothed and 
quieted him; but the efforts which the priests who 
were leading him made to restrain him only served the 
more to terrify him, and so to increase his violence. 
And the priests, who now for a considerable time had 
seen him daily, and had known him only as the most 
gentle and biddable of creatures, were mightily aston- 
ished, and evidently were terrified, by this sudden out- 
break of a flerce temper that most reasonably took 
them entirely by surprise. Partly by pulling at the 
rope that they had about his neck, and partly by such 
pushes as they dared to give him while he was momen- 
tarily at rest, they succeeded in forcing him down the 
steps; and so at last into the large circular space at 
the bottom of the amphitheatre, in the midst of which 
stood the stone of sacrifice and where the smell of 
blood was overpoweringly strong. But by the time 
that this victory was won El Sabio had ceased to be 
a quiet orderly donkey, accustomed to conform to the 
usages of human society, and had become a veritable 
erazy creature, inflamed by the madness of fear and rage. 

By some miracle—a very happy miracle for those 
whom the poor ass most naturally regarded as his tor- 
mentors—Hl Sabio’s nimble heels had until this mo- 
ment lashed the air harmlessly ; but just as the last 
step downward was accomplished he let out both of his 
hind-legs together, and with such precision that both of 
his hoofs struck a remarkably tall priest who had taken 
@ very active part in persecuting him. The blow was 
landed fairly on the tall priest’s stomach, and instantly 
the two long halves of that priest shut together like a 


EL SABIO’S DEFIANCE. 369 


jack-knife, and he fell to the ground with a gasp that 
told how thoroughly the wind was knocked out of him. 
Doubtless this outburst of violence served but to in- 
crease El] Sabio’s terror, for he straightway gave so 
strong a plunge that he fairly broke away from the men 
who were holding him; and then he bent all his ener- 
gies to working such destruction as never was worked 
by one single ass since the very beginning of the world! 

Fortunately for our own safety—for El Sabio was 
in no condition to discriminate between friends and 
foes—we still were at some distance from the bottom 
of the amphitheatre when this outbreak occurred; the 
greater part of the priests having preceded us, and KE] 
Sabio having been led in the van of the prisoners. It 
was wholly upon the priests, therefore, that his mad 
rage was expended, and the way that he “got in his 
work,” as Young expressed it, on these enemies of his 
and ours was a joyful wonder to behold. Being closely 
penned in—for the way whence they had entered the 
amphitheatre was barred by the crowd of which we 
were a part, and the entrance to the subterranean pas- 
sage leading to the temple was closed—the priests had 
no chance to escape from the furious creature save by 
clambering up the smooth wall, fully eight feet high, 
by which was enclosed the circular space that imme- 
diately surrounded the altar. Even an agile man, go- 
ing at it quietly, would have found a little difficulty 
in executing this gymnastic feat, that required for its 
accomplishment sheer lifting of the body until a leg 
could be thrown over the top of the wall; and as these 
priests, for the most part, had grown fat and sluggish 

24 


370 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


in their sacred calling, they were wellnigh incapacitat- 
ed from performing it. Furthermore, El] Sabio mani- 
fested what had the appearance of being a most dia- 
bolical ingenuity — yet that, no doubt, was no more 
than chance — in delivering flying kicks against the 
legs of these dangling creatures; wherefrom such keen 
pain resulted that they instantly let loose their hold, 
and came tumbling to the ground. 

So far as we were concerned—our sympathies being 
wholly on the side of the ass—this astonishing spectacle 
remained a broad farce until the very end ; but it pres- 
ently became to the men engaged in it a very serious 
tragedy. As he made his wild charges, El Sabio gal- 
loped backward and forward again and again over the 
bodies of his prostrate enemies; in the course of which 
gallopings his sharp little hoofs cut their naked flesh 
savagely, and now and then, when he happened to 
land a kick fairly against a man’s body, we could see, 
from the sinking in of the fellow’s ribs and the gush of 
blood that burst from his nostrils, that the ass had de- 
livered a death-blow. 

As for the noise that attended this most extraor- 
dinary performance, words can but faintly describe it. 
From the men directly engaged with El Sabio came 
yells of fear and shouts for assistance and cries of 
anger, beneath all of which was a dull undertone of 
groans; the crowd around us and higher up behind us 
gave vent toa shrill roar of shouts and yells that seemed 
to be partly in the nature of advice, and partly the re- 
sult of that instinct which prompts all barbarians te 
yell whenever anybody else yells, on general principles. 


EL SABIO’S DEFIANCE. Sia 


Pablo interpolated a most despairing note in the way 
of beseeching cries of “ B-u-r-r-r-o ! B-u-r-r-r-o !” where- 
by he sought to allay El Sabio’s frenzy, and so to save 
him from the direful fate that well might be expected 
to overtake him in recompense of his direful deeds; 
and Young fairly tossed his battered Derby hat up into 
the air as he shouted: “Go it, El Sabio! Give it to 
’em,my boy! Ten t’ one against th’ fat priest! Three 
cheers for th’ jackass! MHip-hip-hurrah!’ In short, 
it seemed as though Bedlam had broken loose among 
us, and as though all of us together were going mad. 

What with dodging behind his fellows, and keeping 
clear of El Sabio’s frantic charges by the display of an 
agility that I would not have given him credit for, the 
little fat priest managed to preserve his small round 
body unharmed until all of his companions had either 
escaped over the wall or had been, as Young put it, 
knocked out by El Sabio’s heels. Once or twice he 
had made a dash for the passage-way in which we were 
standing, but the lower end of this was choked with 
the dozen or more badly wounded wretches who had 
crawled thither in their efforts to escape; and these 
the priests in front of us, being but cowardly creatures, 
had made no effort to succor or to lift away, for the 
reason that so long as this barrier remained they them- 
selves were safe from El Sabio’s fury. 

Having, therefore, no longer any one to hide behind, 
the fat little priest evidently realized that his only 
hope of salvation lay in making an effort, truly heroic 
in one of his height and girth and woful shortness of 
wind, to clamber up the face of the wall; and to this 


S72 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE, 


wellnigh impossible task he most resolutely set him- 
self. It was only by jumping that he was able to get 
a grip over the top of the wall; yet when this grip 
was gained he could get no farther on his way to de- 
liverance, and so he hung dangling there, his face to 
the wall, jerking his short fat legs about spasmodically, 
and wasting in most piercing yells what little there 
was in him of wind. 

It did really seem as though El Sabio’s action in 
these premises was dictated by reason, for when he saw 
the priest in this wholly unprotected position he delib- 
erately took his stand at precisely the point behind the 
little man where all of his kicking power could be 
most effectively used. There was a momentary hush 
as E] Sabio thus placed himself, for every one perceived 
how very open was the priest to assault; and at the 
same time it was apparent that while El Sabio’s kicks 
assuredly would be exceedingly painful, they were not 
likely to inflict upon the priest, while he remained in 
that attitude, a deadly wound. In an instant the two 
small heels flashed through the air, and there was 
heard a dull, soft sound—such as might come from the 
striking of an over-ripe melon with a heavy club—and 
with this burst forth a most piercing shriek of pain. 
Yet the little priest, knowing that his life depended 
upon it, most gallantly retained his hold. Again El 
Sabio kicked, and again a piercing shriek sounded ; and 
one hand loosened for a moment and then clutched fast 
again. But when El Sabio kicked for the third time 
human nature was too weak to resist further against 
brute violence. With a yell that fairly cracked our 


IN THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE, , 373 


ears the priest let go his hold and fell downward and 
backward ; and at that same instant El Sabio delivered 
a final kick that struck fairly on the head of the fall- 
ing man and battered in his skull. 

As for El Sabio, it seemed as though he himself were 
like to die im the very moment of his victory; for 
with a sort of groan that, coming from a brute beast, 
was most pitiful to listen to, the poor terrified creat- 
ure, utterly exhausted by his fright and his outlay of 
energy in furious violence, sank down panting by the 
side of the man whom he had slain. 


XX XIIT. 
IN THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


Even with El Sabio reduced to this condition of 
complete quiescence, the Aztlanecas, soldiers as well as 
priests, still were terribly afraid of him; being firmly 
convinced, as was not at all unnatural, that for the 
time being there was embodied in him a devil of a 
most dangerous sort. Therefore they were but too 
glad to yield to Pablo’s burning eagerness to get to 
the poor ass; and when he called for aid to carry the 
exhausted creature out from the amphitheatre, and so 
away from among the dead and wounded and from 
the dreadful smell of blood, Young and I promptly 
were pushed forward and ordered to perform this piece 
of work that even the bravest of them shrunk from 
undertaking, 


374 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


However, there was no real peril in it, for El Sabio 
was so weak that he could not even stand, and still 
less was he strong enough to kick anybody. Lifting 
him in this dull, limp state, and carrying him up the 
steep steps, was heavy work for us, wounded and weary 
as we were; but with Pablo’s help we managed it, 
and so got him up from the depths of the amphitheatre 
to its windward side—where a fresh sweet breeze that 
was blowing, and some water that a soldier brought 
when Pablo called for it, in a little while put new life 
into him. Why the ass was not made to pay the pen- 
alty of his sins, by being there and then killed, at first 
was a good deal of a puzzle tome; but presently, from 
the talk that went on about us while Pablo ministered 
to him, and while the wounded lying around the altar 
were being cared for, and the dead borne away, I gath- 
ered that no one dared to kill him for fear of being 
himself possessed by the devil that needs must enter 
another body upon being thus set free. And as this 
seemed to be a view of the case that was worth en- 
couraging, I very gravely told one of the priests that I 
myself had seen a man all in an instant go raving mad 
upon slaying one of these creatures and so letting the 
devil loose from him. As this story was circulated 
among the crowd I was glad to perceive that the dread 
of El Sabio obviously greatly increased. 

As a result of the untoward outbreak that had oc- 
curred, no attempt was made to complete the cere- 
monial of triumph. Indeed, the victory now lay so 
decidedly with El Sabio that there was but little to 
triumph over. Therefore we presently were herded 


IN THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 375 


together by a party of soldiers—who took good care 
that Pablo should lead the ass, and that Young and I 
should walk directly behind him as a protection against 
any further uplifting of his heels—and so we all were 
marched once more into the temple. This time we did 
not stop in front of the great idol, but went on beyond 
it towards a portal in the rear of the building that 
opened on an inner court; on the farther side of which 
court, as we knew from the description of the place 
that Tizoc had given us, was the Treasure-house, in 
which was stored not only the treasure placed there in 
long past ages by King Chaltzantzin, but also the. 
treasure belonging to the State and to the temple that 
had been accumulated in later times. 

At the entrance to the court-yard, where the way 
was closed by a metal grating over which a heavy cur- 
tain hung, the soldiers formally relinquished us into 
the charge of a company of priests; and then the cur- 
tain was drawn aside and the grating was raised, and 
we passed out into the bright sunlight—and saw close 
before us the place which for so long a time had so 
largely filled our thoughts. It was a building of no 
great size, being but a single story high, and was 
dwarfed by the vastly stupendous cliffs which so far 
overtopped it that they seemed to extend upward to 
the very sky; but it was most massively constructed, 
and the actual available space within it was far greater 
than was indicated by the relatively small dimensions 
of its exterior walls. When we entered the building, 
through a narrow opening protected by a metal grat- 
ing, the chamber into which we came was of so con- 


376 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


siderable a size that a part of it, we perceived, must 
extend actually into the cliff; and that the work of 
quarrying out the living rock had been carried still 
farther was shown by an opening at its rear end that 
evidently gave access to some hollow depth beyond. 

It was towards this inner recess that our guards led 
us. Here another grating was raised that we might 
pass, and we went onward through a narrow passage 
cut in the rock, along the sides of which were many 
openings giving access to small cell-like rooms. Nor 
was this place, as we had expected to find it, wholly 
dark; for narrow slits had been cut through the rock 
out to the face of the cliff, through which came so 
much light that we could see about us very well. And 
but for that blessed light, faint though it was, I doubt 
not that we should have gone mad there; and even 
with the light to cheer and to comfort us I felt a 
black despair settling down upon me at the thought 
of being thus imprisoned within the very bowels of 
the mountain, with no possibility of other release than 
being taken thence to die. 

At the extreme end of the passage the rock had 
been hollowed away smoothly and carefully so as to 
form a chamber nearly thirty feet square and at least 
twenty feet high, whereof all the walls were covered 
with plates of gold which overlapped each other in the 
manner of fishes’ scales; and advantage had been taken 
of some wide crevice or deep depression in the eliff 
above to open in the roof of this chamber a small aper- 
ture, whence a pale light entered in long fine rays 
which gleamed through the shadows, and gleamed 


IN THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 377 


again more faintly in reflections from the golden walls. 
In this oratory —for such it evidently was—stood a 
statue, smaller than that in the temple yet still more 
magnificently arrayed, of the god Huitzilopochtli; be- 
fore which odious image we were thrown upon our 
faces by our guards. When this ceremony was ended 
we were led forth once more into the passage, and so 
into two of the little cells which had been meagrely 
prepared for us by tossing into each of them a bundle 
of mats; and there our guards left us to shift for our- 
selves—shutting the grating behind them with a sharp 
ringing of metal on stone that echoed dismally through 
the rock-hewn chambers wherein we were held fast. 

For a while we stood in melancholy silence about 
the stretcher on which poor Rayburn lay; and very 
pale and worn he looked after his great loss of blood 
and heavy fatigue and the pain and excitement of the 
last few hours. Pablo had taken up his quarters with 
El Sabio in a cell on the opposite side of the passage— 
for within the limits of our prison we were left to ar- 
range ourselves as we pleased—and we could hear him 
talking to the ass in a fashion that at any other time 
we should have laughed at; for by turns he upbraided 
him for his rash acts, and complimented him upon his 
bravery, and expressed dread of the punishment that 
might be visited upon him, and told him of his very 
tender love—all of which, so far as we could judge, El 
Sabio took in equally good part. 

“There ain’t no good in standin’ ’round here doin’ 
nothin’,” Young said, at last. ‘This don’t look like 
much of a place t’ break out of, but we may as well see 


378 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


how things are, anyway. Th’ Padre ’d better take a 
squint at Rayburn’s busted leg an’ set th’ bandages 
straight; an’ while he’s attendin’ t’ that, me an’ you, 
Professor, can do a little prospectin’. This is th’ 
Treasure-house, for sure, an’ it’ll be some satisfaction 
t? see what it amounts to. [ll bet a hat there ain’t 
anything worth havin’ in th’ whole place, after all.” 

I was glad enough to have any occupation that 
would change even a little the sad current of my 
thoughts, and I therefore very willingly acted on 
Young’s suggestion—after first making sure that Fray 
Antonio had no need of help in his work of dressing 
Rayburn’s wound—and together we set about this cu- 
rious exploration ; that had in it a strong charm for me, 
notwithstanding my heavy sorrow, because of the pos- 
sibility that it opened of finding curious traces of a 
new community so far advanced in civilization as was 
that which the King Chaltzantzin had brought with 
him into this valley a thousand years ago. Here, un- 
questionably, was the oldest deposit of the belongings 
of any of the primitive dwellers upon the American 
continent; and I trembled a little with excitement at 
the thought of what archeological treasures I here 
might find—and then I heaved suddenly a long sigh as 
I remembered how useless in my present case would 
be even the most brilliant of discoveries. 

As for Young’s bet of a hat that there was no treas- 
ure here worth having, he would have lost it, had it 
been accepted, at the very first of the rooms which we 
examined; for the whole of this room, a cube of about 
ten feet, was packed full of bars of hardened gold from 


IN THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 379 


the mine at Huitzilan. And so was the next room, 
and the next, until we had found five rooms thus filled. 
But all the remaining rooms were entirely empty, and 
of the treasure set aside in long past ages by King 
Chaltzantzin there was no sign. Yet here, truly, was 
stored wealth the like of which the richest monarch in 
the world could not match for greatness; and as Young 
beheld before him such enormous riches his face grew 
ruddy, an eager light came into his eyes, the muscles 
of his throat worked convulsively, and his breathing 
was labored and short—until I demolished all his fine 
fancies at a blow by saying: “ Much good this treasure 
is to us, when there isn’t a ghost of a chance that ei- 
ther of us ever will get out of this valley alive!” As 
I uttered these bitter words his look of animation left 
him, and for some moments he was silent; and when 
at last he spoke, it was in a tone of calm though mel- 
ancholy conviction, and with a most dispassionate air. 

“I shall be obliged t’ you, Professor, really obliged 
t’? you,” he said, “if you’ll just kick me for a blasted 
fool. Ever since that night in Morelia when you told 
me an’ Rayburn about this treasure I’ve regularly had 
it on my brain. Through all these months [ve been 
thinkin’ about it when I was awake an’ dreamin’ about 
it when I was asleep. An’ it’s true for a fact, Pro- 
fessor, that never until this blessed minute, when we’ve 
really struck it, has th’ notion come into my fool head 
that when we did ketch up with it the folks it rightly 
b’longed to might want t’ keep it for theirselves! Yes, 
just kick me, please. Just kick me for a forlorn, mis- 
*rable, blasted fool!” 


380 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


I was not disposed to laugh at Young’s words; rath- 
er was I disposed to weep over them. For they brought 
freshly and strongly to my mind the fact that I was 
responsible for alluring him, by the hope of acquiring 
great riches quickly, into this accursed valley, where 
in a little while he would be most barbarously done to 
death. And I knew too that I was responsible for the 
hke fate that must overtake Rayburn, and that in re- 
gard to Pablo my guilt was greatest of all. It was a 
eomfort to me, truly, that not one of these ever by look 
or word reproached me for thus so wofully misleading 
them; and yet, in a certain way, their very forbearance 
but added to my pain. | 

Therefore was Ia little gladdened, when we returned 
again to the others, to find that Fray Antonio was 
speaking to Rayburn, with a grave, calm hopefulness, 
of those spiritual realities which are higher and better 
than material realities, and without steadfast trust in 
which, most of us, in the course of this sorrowful thing 
that we call life, assuredly would go mad in sheer de- 
spair. And listening to this comforting discourse, 
which was not checked by our return, did much to 
strengthen me to bear my heavy load of vain regret. 
Presently Fray Antonio shifted his ground—for he 
had the wisdom to speak but shortly on these grave 
topics, yet using always pregnant words which sank 
down into men’s hearts and germinated there—and 
told us of what had befallen him since he had stolen 
away from us that night in Huitzilan. 

In truth, he had but little to tell, for his adventures 
had been of a very simple kind. Upon his arrival in 


IN THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 381 


the eanoe at the water-gate he had been at once recog- 
nized and admitted, and had been carried directly to 
the building in which, on our first coming into the city, 
we all had been confined. And there he had been im- 
prisoned until he was led up to the temple to take part 
in the triumph that El Sabio’s violence so seriously had 
marred, and so once more was in our company. Of the 
Priest Captain he had seen nothing at all; nor had any 
answer come back to him from that dignitary to his 
urgent plea that, inasmuch as he had thus surrendered 
himself, his companions—that is, ourselves— should 
be suffered to leave the valley in peace; which silence 
on the part of the Priest Captain was not surprising, 
however, in view of the brave defiance in words sent 
by the Tlahuicas, who afterwards were such cowards 
in deeds. 

In fact, during the brief time of his imprisonment 
Fray Antonio had not spoken to a soul save the man 
who brought him drink and food. Yet his talk with 
this man, scant though it had been, had filled him with 
the hope that, could he only hold free converse with 
the people at large, even as he had done at Huitzilan, 
the purpose that he had in mind in coming into the 
valley would be fulfilled. Although a priest of the 
temple, his jailer had listened with a most earnest and 
hearty attention to the expounding of Christian doc- 
trine that was opened to him, and had shown a very 
cheering willingness to recognize the shortcomings of 
his own idolatrous belief as compared with the prin- 
ciples of this purer and nobler faith. And he had told 
Fray Antonio that many of bis companions in the serv- 


382 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


ice of the temple, having heard somewhat of the new 
creed from those who had come up from Huitzilan, 
were eager to know more concerning it; so that it 
would seem, Fray Antonio declared, as though there 
were a harvest there ready to be reaped to Christian- 
ity by his hand. The case was such, he thought, that 
could he but speak publicly to the multitude, and es- 
pecially could there but be vouchsafed from Heaven 
some sign by which the verity of his words might be 
established, he yet would win to the glorious Christian 
faith this whole community, that, through no fault of 
its own, until that time had remained lost in heathen 
sin. 

Rayburn and I exchanged glances as Fray Antonio 
spoke of aid being given him in his work by a sign 
from Heaven, for to our notions the time of miracles 
was a long while past. But Fray Antonio, as we knew 
(for once or twice we three had spoken together of 
this matter), did not at all hold with us in believing 
that miracle-working had come to an end; and indeed 
his faith was entirely logical; for, as he himself put 
it, those who believed that miracles ever had been 
wrought for the advancement of Christianity could not 
reasonably draw a line at any year since the Christian 
Church was founded, and say that in that year mir- 
acles ceased to be. In this matter, as in many others, 
the resemblance between Fray Antonio and the founder 
of his Order, Saint Francis of Assisi, was very strong. 

Pablo’s experience as a prisoner had been of a far 
more trying sort; for the priests had sought earnestly, 
he said, by most stringent means, to pervert him from 


IN THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 383 


Christianity to their own faith. When we had been 
so rudely separated that day, after our interview with 
the Priest Captain, he, and El Sabio with him, had been 
hurried up the stairs to the temple, and thence to the 
Treasure-house ; and there, though not in the part of 
it in which we then were, he had been ever since con- 
fined. Strong measures certainly had been taken to 
make a heathen of him. He had been starved for a 
while, and he had been deprived of water, and he had 
been cruelly scourged, and very harrowing present- 
ments had been made to him of the death that he must 
die should he much longer refuse to yield. That the 
jad had remained firm in his faith, he told us, sobbing 
a little at memory of his hardships, was because of the 
sorrow that he knew his yielding would bring upon 
Fray Antonio and upon me; which certainly was not 
the reason that Fray Antonio most would have ap- 
proved, but it did not in the least detract from the 
steady courage that he had shown in holding out firm- 
ly under pressure that would have made many a man 
succumb. In all the time that so many cruelties had 
been practised upon him, only one man had shown him 
kindness—an old man, who seemed to be in charge of 
the archives that the Treasure-house contained, who 
twice had risked his own life by secretly giving him 
water and food. But he never had been separated from 
El Sabio, Pablo said joyfully, in conclusion, nor had his 
mouth-organ been taken away from him; and these 
blessings had done much to lessen the misery that he 
was compelled to bear. 

When, in our turn, Rayburn and Young and I had 


$84 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


told of the far more stirring adventures that we had 
passed through, and of our high hopes seemingly so 
well founded that had suffered so dismal a downfall, 
we all of us wisely refrained from speculating at all 
upon the future; instead of which profitless and pain- 
ful topic we strove to speak cheerfully of indifferent 
matters; and this we did not only that we might the 
better keep our hearts up, but that we might not ex- 
cite Rayburn, who already was in a dangerously fever- 
ish condition by reason of his wound. But, though we 
spoke not of it, we none of us doubted what our fate 
would be; nor did we imagine that the death that 
surely awaited us would be long delayed. 

It was a source of wonder to us, therefore, that day 
after day went by without bringing the end that we 
so confidently expected. From the man who brought 
us our food we could learn nothing; but this was 
not from ill-will on his part, but because he himself 
knew nothing of the Priest Captain’s plans. This 
man, though a priest, was not unkindly disposed tow- 
ards us, and he even listened to the words which Fray 
Antonio addressed to him touching Christian doctrine ; 
but while he listened—being made of a sterner stuff 
than the priest who previously had been Fray Anto- 
nio’s jailer—he gave no sign of assent. The only other 
person whom we had a chance to speak with, and this 
but rarely, was the old man who had shown kindness 
to Pablo, the guardian of the archives—who, by right 
of his official position, had free access to that portion 
of the Treasure-house from which the second grating 
cut us off. At the grating he and I had some very 


IN THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 385 


teresting conversations together upon archxological 
matters; but Fray Antonio took but little interest in 
him when he found how slight was the impression 
made upon him by the most serious of doctrinal talk. 
fn truth, this old fellow—wheretore my own heart 
warmed to him—was wholly given to the study of an- 
tiquities; and so full was his mind of this delightful 
subject that there was no room left in it for thoughts 
about religions of any sort. He was entirely catholic 
in this matter, for his unconcern respecting Christian- 
ity was neither more marked nor less marked than was 
his unconcern toward his own avowed faith. 

Many curious things this old man told me touching 
the history of his people; and he showed me, also, the 
manner in which their annals were kept—an obvious 
evolution from the picture-writing of the Aztecs that 
had advanced to a stage closely resembling the cross 
between ideaographs and an alphabet that the Coreans 
use—all of which I have dealt with exhaustively in 
my larger work. And he told me also, with a wonder 
that did not seem uncalled for, that several times in 
each year the Priest Captain retired to the very place 
in which we then were imprisoned, and remained there 
sometimes for as much as a whole month cut off from 
his people, without food or drink, while he communed 
with the gods. 

But what seemed strange to me, and also bitterly 
disheartening, was that this old man, notwithstanding 
the office that he held and his hungry love for ancient 
things, could tell me nothing of the treasure that King 
Chaltzantzin had stored away. He knew of this treas- 

25 


386 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


ure, he said, only as a vague tradition; and although, 
at one time or another, he had explored every chamber 
in the Treasure-house, he never had found of this an- 
cient deposit the smallest trace ; for which excellent 
reason he had concluded that if ever there had been 
such a treasure it long since had been dispersed. No 
doubt—considering how useless to me, beyond the mere 
gratification of my own curiosity, would have been its 
discovery—my regret at this abrupt ending of my hopes 
was most unreasonable; but I confess that, so far as I 
myself was concerned, the very keenest pang of sorrow 
that I suffered through all that sorrowful time was 
when I thus learned that the archeological search that 
I had entered upon so hopefully, and that I had so 
laboriously prosecuted, had been but a fool’s errand 
from first to last. 


XXXIV. 
A MARTYRDOM. 


Hravity and wearily the days dragged on as we lay 
in that dismal prison hewn from the mountain’s heart; 
and as they slowly vanished there stole upon us a new 
sorrow, that was deeper and more searching than the 
doubting dread by which we were beset touching the 
cruel ending of our lives. 

Rayburn’s wound—a very savage cut in the thigh, 
made by the jagged edge of a maccahuitl—from the 
first had been a dangerous one; and the danger had 


A MARTYRDOM. 387 


been aggravated by inflammation that had follow- 
ed that long, hot journey across the lake, and by the 
rough handling that his bearers had given him, and by 
the excitement that had attended El Sabio’s fiery out- 
burst beside the sacrificial stone. Even Fray Antonio’s 
skill in surgery, without which he assuredly would have 
quickly died, only barely sufficed to keep him alive 
while the fever was upon him; and when at last the 
fever left him, the little strength remaining to him 
grew less with every passing day. It was pathetic 
to see this man, who until then had been the very em- 
bodiment of rugged vigor, so worn with suffering that 
without Fray Antonio’s tender assistance he scarce 
could move; and still more pathetic was it to hear him 
moaning in his pain, and uttering heart-sick longings 
for sunlight and fresh air, for need of which, Fray An- 
tonio affirmed, he was dying there quite as much as be- 
cause of his wound. Indeed, the chill chamber in the 
tock where he was lying was no fit place even for a well 
man at that time to dwell in; for the season of rains 
had come, and all the nights were cold and damp, while 
through the afternoons and in the night-time, during 
which portions of the day the rain fell in torrents, the 
whole mountain was shaken by the tremendous peals 
of thunder which roared and crashed about its crest. 
It was after one of poor Rayburn’s pitiable outbreaks 
of weak moaning that Young led me away into the 
oratory, with the evident intention of delivering him- 
self of some matter that pressed heavily upon his mind. 
“See here, Professor, I just can’t stand this any 
longer,” he said, when we were alone. “I’m goin’ t’ 


388 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


send word t’ th’ Priest Captain t’ ask him if finishin’ 
me off in short order won’t make him willin’ t’ let Ray- 
burn out o’ this damp hole into some place where he 
can be comfortable, an’ where in th’ mornin’s he can 
get some sun an’ air. Rayburn won’t mind bein’ square- 
ly killed after he’s healthy again. He ain’t th’ kind t’ 
be afraid of anything when he’s feelin’ all right. But 
it’s just infernal cruelty t’ kill him this way—it wouldn’t 
be fair to adog. So Tm goin’ t’ try what I can do. It’s 
nothin’ much t’ do, any way—only runnin’ a little ahead 
o’ th’ schedule, that’s all.” 

Oddly enough, something of a like purpose had been 
for some time past slowly forming in my own mind 
—though what I intended to do would have, I hoped, 
still better consequences; for my notion was to urge 
that for the pleasure that could be had from killing 
me, my companions should be given such freedom as 
was to be found in that rock-bound region beyond the 
Barred Pass. Therefore, when Young thus brought up 
the matter openly between us, 1 told him of my own 
intention; and with some emphasis I advised him that 
inasmuch as I first had thought of it, to me belonged 
the right to carry this project into execution; and es- 
pecially was this right mine, I urged, because but for 
me neither he nor any of the rest of us—saving only, 
possibly, Fray Antonio—ever would have come into 
that valley at all. Thereupon we fell to wrangling 
somewhat hotly; for Young was a most pig-headed 
man when his mind was set upon anything, and his 
notions of argument even at the best of times were of 
the loosest kind. 


A MARTYRDOM. 389 


How our talk might have ended I cannot tell, for 
each of us most resolutely was determined to have his 
own way; but it actually did end because of an inter- 
ruption by which we presently learned that a will finer 
and stronger than either of ours had been acting, while 
we had been only thinking, in a fashion that cut the 
ground completely from under us both. And all that 
followed within the next hour or two came upon us 
with so startling a suddenness that it seemed less like 
reality than like a terrible dream. 

The first intimation that we had that anything was 
upon us out of the common run of our drearily dull 
prison life was hearing a creaking noise that we knew 
must be caused by the raising of the grating that shut 
us in; and as we hurried out from the oratory into 
the long passage-way we saw a company of soldiers 
coming towards us, at the head of which was a priest. 
Fray Antonio and Pablo, startled as we had been by 
the sound caused by the opening of the grating and 
the tramp of feet, also had come out into the passage; 
but while Pablo evidently was wondering, even as we 
were wondering, what might be the purpose that these 
men had come to execute, the look upon the monk’s 
face was of expectation rather than of surprise. And 
without waiting for the others to speak, he asked, eager- 
ly: Is it to be?” 

“Tt is to be,” the priest answered; and it seemed to 
me that there was sorrow in the look that went with his 
words, and sorrow also in the tone of his voice; and 
that this man truly was sorrowful because of the mes- 
sage that he brought I doubt not, for he was the priest 


390 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


who had been jailer to Fray Antonio, and whose mind 
had seemed so open to receive the doctrine that Fray 
Antonio taught. : 

But there was only joy in the bearing of the monk 
as his question thus was answered; and there was a 
ringing gladness in his voice as he replied—being most 
careful first to draw us away from the room in which 
Rayburn was lying—to our looks of wondering inquiry. 
“The Priest Captain has granted my request,” he said, 
and added quickly: ‘“‘ Do not sorrow for me, my friends. 
Dying for the Faith is the most glorious ending that 
life can have; and happier still is he to whom, with this 
rare privilege, is given also that of dying that those 
whom he loves may yet be saved alive. The Priest 
Captain has promised that when I have paid this little 
debt of life you whom [ love so greatly shall go free—” 

“Don’t you believe him! He’s a blasted liar from the 
word go!” Young struck in, clean forgetting, in the pas- 
sionate sorrow that was rising in his breast, that what 
Fray Antonio so plainly had in mind to do he himself 
had been most strongly bent upon doing but a moment 
before. But Young spoke in English, and without heed- 
ing him Fray Antonio went on: “ You two, and the 
boy, surely will live; and perhaps life may be given 
also to our friend. He is in God’s hands. And then, 
until—” 

But further speech was not permitted to him. Two 
soldiers stepped forward and grasped his arms, yet first 
suffering him for a moment to clasp hands with us, 
and so led him towards the open grating; and behind 
him Young and I and Pablo were conducted in a like 


A MARTYRDOM. 391 


fashion by the guards. As we passed the room in 
which Rayburn lay we heard him moaning faintly ; 
and.so weak was he that day that it seemed to me a 
very likely thing for us to find him dead there upon 
our return—if, indeed, we ever returned at all. 

As we passed out into the inner court of the temple, 
where the sun shone joyously—for the day still was 
young, and the rain-clouds had but begun to gather 
about the mountain peaks—we heard a murmur in the 
air like the distant sound of bees buzzing ; and as we 
entered the rear portal of the temple this sound grew 
louder, yet still was soft and blurred. In the temple, 
Fray Antonio was separated from us, being led towards 
the inner entrance of that subterranean passage which 
opened into the pit of the amphitheatre; and as we 
went onward to the great portal in the temple’s front 
we cast towards him sorrowful looks, in which all the 
bitter pain that was in our hearts was concentrated, 
but had in answer from him, as he walked with elate 
bearing between his guards, only looks of most joyful 
hope in which was also a very tender love. 

The noise that at first had seemed to us like bees 
buzzing grew louder as we advanced, until, when we 
came out upon the open space before the temple, it 
swelled into a mighty roar. And there the cause of 
it was plain to us; for before us lay the great amphi- 
theatre crowded with a seething multitude, and all 
the thousands gathered there were uttering savage 
cries of delight at thought of the savage spectacle 
that now in a few moments would gladden their fierce 
hearts. In the midst of this tumult we were hur- 


392 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


ried into a sort of balcony, heavily built of stone, that 
hung upon the slope of the amphitheatre ; just behind 
and above which was a much larger balcony of richly 
wrought stone-work that was covered by a canopy of 
colored stuffs, and that had in its midst a sort of throne. 
And at sight of us a great shout went up, that in a 
moment died away into a hush of silence as the Priest 
Captain, with a company of priests about him, enter- 
ed the balcony behind us and took his seat upon the 
throne. 

But in another instant the shouting burst forth again 
as Fray Antonio came out from the passage that open- 
ed beneath us, and in a moment was lifted bodily by 
his guards and placed upon the Stone of Sacrifice in 
plain view of all. I wondered as I saw that only sol- 
diers accompanied him, and that there was no sign 
of the coming of the priests by whom the sacrifice 
would be made. But my wonder ceased, and the burn- 
ing pain that then consumed me was a little lessened, 
as there came forth from the underground passage, 
guarded by four soldiers, a very tall, strong Indian, 
whose muscles stood out in great knots upon his lithe 
body and legs and arms, and immediately following 
him six others no less powerful—for then I knew that 
Fray Antonio was not to die the cruel and bloody death 
of a sacrificial victim, but was to have, in accordance 
with the Aztec custom, such chance of life as was to be 
found in fighting these seven men in turn and receiv- 
ing his freedom when he had slain them all. Yet as 
I looked at the slim figure of the monk, and then at 
these burly giants ready to be pitted against him, i 


A MARTYRDOM. 393 


knew that but one result could issue from that unequal 
combat; and a sudden dizziness came upon me, and for 
a moment all around me was dark. Nor was this mo- 
mentary darkness wholly imaginary ; for just then 
—with a low growl of distant thunder —a fragment 
broke away from the great mass of black cloud that 
hung upon the crest of the cliff above us and drifted 
sluggishly across the face of the sun. 

When my dizziness had passed, and I could again see 
clearly, the warrior was standing upon the Stone of 
Sacrifice—naked save for his breech-clout, and armed 
with a round shield and a maccahuitl of hardened 
gold. The monk still wore his flowing habit, whence 
the hood had fallen back, so that his head was bare; 
in one hand he held his crucifix,and with the other he 
was motioning away the sword and shield that a sol- 
dier held out to him: at sight of which refusal on his 
part to be armed there was a shrill outcry among the 
multitude that the fight would not be fair; and to this 
sharp noise of strident voices there was added a sol- 
emn undertone that came in a low roll of thunder from 
the overhanging cloud. 

As though to still the clamor, the monk waved his 
hand; and when at this sign the outcries ceased, he 
asked—yet addressing not the Priest Captain but the 
whole mass of people gathered there—if certain words 
which he desired to utter would be heard. And in an- 
swer to him there went up a shout of assent, in which 
was drowned completely (save that we, being close be- 
neath him, heard it) the Priest Captain’s order that 
the fight should begin. And it struck me that the 


394 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


Priest Captain showed his appreciation of the critical sit- 
uation with which he then was dealing, and his dread of 
the forces which an ill-timed word in opposition to the 
will of the multitude might let loose against him, by 
refraining from repeating his order when silence came 
again, and all the thousands gathered there leaned for- 
ward eagerly to hearken to what Fray Antonio would 
Bay. 

And what he did say was the most moving and the 
most exalted deliverance that ever came forth from 
mortal man. To that great multitude he preached 
there shortly, but with an eloquence that I doubt not 
was born directly of heavenly inspiration, a sermon so 
searching, so full of God’s great love and tenderness, 
and so full also of the majesty of His law and of the 
long-suffering of His mercy and loving-kindness, that 
every word of it falling from his lips seemed to burn 
into the depths of all those heathen hearts. My own 
heart was thrilled and shaken as it never had been 
stirred before, and the boy Pablo wept as he listened; 
and even Young, to whom the spoken words had no 
meaning, grew pale, and sweat gathered upon his fore- 
head as his soul was moved within him by the infinite- 
ly beseeching tenderness of Fray Antonio’s voice: for 
most wonderfully did his voice rise and fall in its ca- 
denced sweetness and entreaty, and there was a strange- 
ly vibrant quality in his tones that matched the tenor 
of his words, and so held all that vast multitude spell- 
bound. 

As he spoke on, a hush fell upon them who listen- 
ed; and thep through the throng a tremor seemed to 


A MARTYRDOM. : 395 


run, but less a sound of actual speech than a subtle 
manifestation that in a moment a great outburst of as- 
sent would come, and I felt within me that the work 
which Fray Antonio had dared death to accomplish 
already was triumphantly concluded ; and so waited, 
breathless, to hear this heathen host proclaim its glad 
allegiance to the Christian God. 

But the Priest Captain also perceived how imminent 
was the danger that menaced the ancient faith, and 
dared to take the one chance left for saving it, and 
that a desperate one, by breaking in upon Fray An- 
tonio’s discourse with a ringing order that the fight 
should be no longer delayed; whereat a deep growl of 
dissent ran through the crowd, that was echoed in a 
still deeper roar of thunder in the dark sky. In truth, 
the gathering of the storm in the heavens above seem- 
ed to be wholly in keeping with the storm that with 
an equal celerity was gathering on the earth below. 
There was a heavy languor, a dense stillness in the air, 
and the cloud above us had drifted out from the face 
of the cliff so far that it now hung over all the city 
like a vast black canopy. From this sombre mass, that 
buried all beneath it in gloomy shadows, flashes of 
lightning shot forth that each moment increased in 
fiery intensity, and the rolling roar of thunder each 
moment grew louder and sharper in its dark depths. 
Even as the Priest Captain spoke there came a yet 
more vivid flash, and almost with it a crashing peal. 

At the word of command, so vehemently given, the 
warrior faced about upon Fray Antonio, and held high 
aloft his sword; but the monk, firmly standing there, 


396 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


while in his eyes shone so glorious a light that it seem- 
ed as though the wrath of outraged Heaven blazed 
forth from them, opposed to this earthly weapon only 
his out-stretched crucifix, and thus confronted the death 
that menaced him with so splendid a bravery that for 
an instant his huge antagonist was held still by a won- 
der that was born half of admiration and half of awe; 
and in the breathless hush of that supreme moment 
Fray Antonio cried out, in tones so clear and so ring- 
ing that his words were heard by all the thousands 
gathered there: 

*“‘T call for help upon the living and the only God !” 

And even as these words still sounded in our ears 
there shot forth from the cloud above us a swift red 
flash of blinding light, and with this came a crash of 
thunder so mighty that the cliffs above straimed and 
quivered, and great fragments of rock came hurtling 
down from them, and a shivering trembling surged 
through the whole mountain, so that we felt it sway- 
ing beneath our feet. 

And as we gazed in awe, through the gloom that 
from all parts of the heavens was gathering towards 
the height whereon we were, we saw before us God’s 
wrath made manifest; for the warrior, still holding 
raised the metal sword that had tempted death to him, 
trembled, reeled a little, swayed gently forward, and 
then, with a sudden jerk, swayed backward again, and 
so fell lifeless—his bare right arm, and all the length 
of his naked body to his very heel marked by a livid 
streak of bloody purple that showed where the thunder- 
bolt had passed. For a moment the monk also seemed 


A MARTYRDOM. '397 


stunned; and then, kneeling beside that lightning-blast- 
ed corpse, and holding his hands out-stretched towards 
heaven, whence his deliverance had come, he cried in a 
clear strong voice, of which the solemn tones rang vi- 
brant through that awful silence: “The Christian God 
liveth and reigneth! Believe on Him whose love and 
whose mercy are not less tender than is terrible His 
transcendent power !” 

There was no mistaking the thrill of movement that 
ran through the multitude as these words were spoken. 
I drew a long breath of thankfulness, for I felt that 
Fray Antonio was saved, and that in another instant 
my ears would be nigh burst by the thunderous roar 
of all those thousands—won to him by his own most 
moving eloquence, and by sight of the miracle whereby 
his deliverance had been wrought—that he should be 
set free. 

And in this instant—in the very moment that this 
sigh escaped me, while yet the pause lasted before 
that great shout came—the Priest Captain sprang 
from his seat above us into the balcony where we 
prisoners stood guarded, on downward into the arena 
below, and thence upon the Stone of Sacrifice —all 
with a demoniac agility most horrible to look upon 
in one of his withered age—and there, with a fierce 
thrust of a spear that he had caught from a soldier’s 
hand in passing, he pierced Fray Antonio between 
the shoulders straight through the heart; and the 
monk, still grasping in his hands his crucifix, fell face 
downward upon the Stone of Sacrifice, and lay there 
dead! 


398 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


Then Itzacoatl, standing with one foot upon the 
monk’s dead body, and grasping still the spear that 
he had planted in that noble heart, cried out, triumph- 
antly, ‘“‘ Behold the victory and the vengeance of our 
Aztec gods !” 

And the multitude, swayed backward from the very 
threshold of the Christian faith, shouted together in 
one mighty voice, ‘‘ Victory and vengeance for our 
gods!” 


XXXV. 


THE TREASURE-CHAMBER. 


Cross in the wake of that great thunder-crash there 
burst upon us so mighty a flood of rain that it seemed 
as though the lightning had riven solid walls asunder 
within the thick black mass of overhanging vapor, and 
so had let loose upon us the waters of a lake. In a 
moment the whole pit of the amphitheatre was awash, 
knee-deep, and before those who were standing there 
could flounder to the steps leading upward they were 
buried to their waists—and this although the water 
was pouring out through the vent provided for it with 
such violence that we could hear the rush and gurgle 
of it above the dashing and roaring of the falling rain. 
And all the dark mass of cloud above us was aflame 
continuously with blinding flashes of red lightning, 
while a continuous crash of splitting peals of thunder 
rang through the shattered air. 


THE TREASURE-CHAMBER. 399 


Doubtless this storm was our salvation. That the 
Priest Captain’s intention, even from the first, had been 
to kill us also, and so make his victory complete, I do 
not for a moment doubt; but he was too shrewd to 
waste upon a few terrified spectators an exhibition that 
would carry with it a salutary demonstration of his 
power; and with the bursting of the flood upon us, the 
crowd that filled the amphitheatre had begun a tu- 
multuous flight to the temple; going thither partly 
for shelter, and partly being awe-struck by what had 
passed before them and by the tremendous fury of 
the storm, that they might find safety in the abiding- 
place of their gods. 

Therefore, the order was given hurriedly that we 
should be taken back to our prison; in obedience to 
which command our guards led us through the temple 
—where they had difficulty in forcing a way for us 
through the dense throng that had gathered within its 
walls—and thence to the Treasure-house beyond ; and 
they were in such haste to be quit of us, that they also 
might seek safety in the temple, that they scarce wait- 
ed to close the grating behind us before they sped 
away. | 

So overwhelming was the grief that had fallen upon 
us that for some moments we stood as though stunned 
where the guards had left us; and, for myself, my one 
regret was that the chance of the storm, by saving me 
yet a little while longer alive, had lost to me the hap- 
piness of dying in the same hour with the friend whom 
I had so strongly loved. Ithink that this thought was 
in Young’s heart also, as he stood there silent beside 


400 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


me, the blood so drawn away from his face that a dull 
yellow pallor overspread his bronzed skin, while his 
breath came short and hard. As for the boy Pablo, 
his whole being was shattered. He sank down on the 
rock at our feet, and seemed to be moaning his very 
life out in long quivering sobs. 

But presently, as our minds grew steadier, the thought 
of Rayburn came to us; and the strain upon our heart- 
strings was relaxed a little by remembering that our 
lives stili were worth holding fast to in order that we 
might minister to his needs. Yet when we came again 
into the room where he lay, it seemed at first as though 
he also was lost to us; for even in that faint light we 
saw that his face was a deadly white, and when we 
spoke to him he neither spoke nor moved. But, hap- 
pily, our dread that he had died in that gloomy soli- 
tude was not realized ; for as I laid my hand upon his 
bare breast I felt his heart feebly beating, and at the 
touch of my hand he sighed a little, and then slowly 
opened his eyes. 

“‘He’s only swounded,” Young cried, joyfully. ‘It’s 
th’ smotherin’ shut-upness o’ this forlorn hole he’s lyin’ 
in, There’s a little more air out in th’ big room. Just 
grab t’other end o’ th’ stretcher, Professor, an’ we’ll 
yank him out there—nobody’s likely t’ come in t’ stop 
us while this storm lasts. An’—an’ we must be care- 
ful how we talk, Professor, y’ know,” he added, in a 
lower tone, as we raised the stretcher. “It won’t do 
for him t’ know about—about i¢ now.” There was a 
break in Young’s voice as he spoke, and I could feel 
by the momentary quiver of the stretcher that a shiver 


THE TREASURE-CHAMBER. 401 


went through him as he thought of that “it,” about 
which we must for a time hold our peace. 

Young bore the forward end of the stretcher, and 
as we came into the oratory I felt him start as he ex- 
claimed, ‘‘ What th’ devil’s broke loose here ?” 

The darkness of the storm outside shrouded the 
oratory in a dusky twilight; but even through the 
shadows which lay thick about us we could see that 
there had been within this chamber some outbreak of 
extraordinary and tremendous violence ; for the image 
of the god Huitzilopochtli had been cast down and 
broken into fragments, and just behind where it had 
stood there was a dark rift in the gold-plating of the 
walls, where several plates had been wrenched bodily 
away. 

A strong odor of sulphur hung heavily in the air, 
and, as I perceived it, the whole matter was plain to 
me. But Young sniffed at this odor suspiciously when 
we had brought the stretcher gently to rest upon the 
floor, and in a startled voice exclaimed, “ Th’ devil has 
been bustin’ around in here for sure, an’ he’s left his | 
regular home-made stink for a give-away!” and as he 
spoke there was manifest a decided bristling of his 
fringe of hair. 

I could not help smiling at this quaint proof of 
the shattered condition of Young’s nerves—for, under 
ordinary circumstances, he was the very last man in 
the world to place faith in things supernatural—but I 
answered him promptly: “Then the devil did a stroke 
of honest business at the same time, for all this is the 
work of the same thunder-bolt, or of a part of it, that 

26 


402 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


killed that Indian. Didn’t you hear the rocks flying 
from the cliff where it struck ?” 

“'That’s just what I was goin’ t’ say myself,” Young 
replied, a little awkwardly. ‘An’ that’s what’s the 
matter with Rayburn, an’ made him swound away. 
How d’ you find yourself now, old man ?” he went on 
—rather glad to change the subject, I fancied —as 
Rayburn, at sound of his own name, moved a little. 

“T feel queer,” Rayburn answered. ‘Sort of numb 
and dizzy. Where’s the Padre ?” 

“ An’ it’s not much blame to you that you do feel 
queer,” Young replied, hurriedly. “This last thing 
you’ve taken it into your fool head t? do is bein’ busted 
all t? bits by a stroke o’ lightnin’. Most folks would 
’a’ been satisfied with havin’ their legs pretty much 
sliced off by Injuns—but reasonableness ain’t your 
strongest hold, Rayburn; an’ I guess it never was.” 

Rayburn smiled faintly as Young spoke, but instead 
of attempting to answer him—being still numbed by 
the heavy shock that he had received—he settled his 
head back upon the rolled-up coat that served him for 
a pillow, and languidly closed his eyes. Whereupon 
Young, seeing that there was nothing further that we 
could do for his comfort, betook himself—as his bent 
at all times was when any strange matter presented 
itself, and in this case with the half-crazed eagerness 
with which those upon whom a great sorrow has fall- 
en seek instinctively to engage their minds with any 
trifling matter that will change the current of their 
thoughts—to investigating carefully the work of de- 
struction that the thunder-bolt had wrought: examin- 


THE TREASURE-CUAMBER. 403 


ing the fragments of the idol, and the loosened plates 
of gold and the place on the wall whence these last 
had been wrenched away; which examination was the 
easier because the storm-cloud was leaving us—though 
the almost continuous loud rolling of the thunder still 
stunned our ears—and a stronger light came in through 
the opening in the roof. 

I seated myself beside Rayburn and paid no atten- 
tion to what Young was doing; for my brooding sor- 
row was like a slow fire consuming me—as the tragedy 
that I had but just witnessed, and the infinite pathos 
that there was in seeing Rayburn thus miserably dying, 
overwhelmed me with a desolate despair. Even when 
Young called to me, in a tone so eager and so pene- 
trating that at any other time I should have been 
startled into quick action by his words, I did not rouse 
myself to answer him; though, in a dull way, I knew 
that he would not thus have spoken unless some matter 
of great moment had aroused the full energy of his 
mind. 

“Professor! I say, Professor!” he repeated: “ Get 
right up and come here. Don’t sit there like a chuckle- 
headed chump. Get up, I tell you. Here’s some sort 
of a show for us. Here’s what looks like a way out o’ 
this God-forsaken hole!” 

As I heard these words I did get up, and in a hurry, 
and so joined Young where he was kneeling on the 
floor close beside the rear wall of the oratory, directly 
behind where the idol had stood until the thunder-bolt 
had dashed it down. It was at this point, apparently, 
that the lightning had entered the chamber ; for here 


404 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


several of the plates of gold with which the walls were 
covered—overlapping each other like fish-scales—had 
been loosened, while three of them had been wrenched 
entirely from their fastenings and had fallen down. 
As I joined him, Young excitedly pointed to the open- 
ing thus made, through which was visible not a solid 
wall of rock but a dark cavity, and from which was 
blowing a soft current of cool air. 

“It’s a way out! It’s a way out! I tell you,” he 
cried. ‘‘This suck o’ wind proves it. If we only can 
get some more o’ these blasted plates loose we'll light 
out o’ this and euchre the Priest Captain an’ his whole 
d n outfit yet! Ketch hold here, Professor, an’ put 
your muscle into it for all you’re worth. Grab right 
here; now!” And Young and I together pulled at 
the same plate with all our might and main. But for 
all the impression that we made upon it we might as 
well have tried to pull down the mountain; the plate 
did not stir. Young gave a hearty curse (and I con- 
fess that hearing him swearing in that natural way 
again was a real comfort to me), and then we took 
another pull; and all this while, so much does the 
thought of saving his life put cheer into a man, my 
heart was bounding within me and the hot coursing 
of my blood seemed like to burst my veins. Young’s 
fervor was not less than mine, and we wrenched and 
tugged together, and never stopped to mark our cut 
and bleeding hands. 

“We've got t’ do it!” Young exclaimed, as we paused 
at last, without having loosened the plate in the least 
degree. “There’s some way 0’ workin’ this thing, I 


THE TREASURE-CHAMBER. 405 


know. It must be some sort of a door, an’ if we only 
can get th’ hang of it we’ll be all right. Have you got 
your wind again, Professor? Let’s try ’f we can’t sort 
o’ prize this plate out; it’s a little loose. Just get your 
fingers under it an’ we'll sort o’ pull it up an’ out at 
th’ same time. So! Now sling your muscle into it. 
Heft!” 

We were stooping a little, and so had a strong pur- 
chase, and with all our united strength we heaved away 
together. There was a rattling of metal, a yielding of 
the plate so easy that our tremendous effort was out 
of all proportion to it; my fingers seemed suddenly to 
be nipped in a red-hot vice; Young uttered a yell of 
pain, and then we both were sprawling on our backs 
on the floor, while in front of us was a broad opening 
in the wall where a wide section of the panelling had 
risen upward (the plates sliding up under each other), 
and so had made an open way. 

““H—ll! how that did hurt!” Young mumbled, with 
his nipped fingers in his mouth; and I must say that 
the vigor of his language was not uncalled for, as I 
well understood by the pain that I myself was suffer- 
ing. I never remember pinching my fingers so badly 
as I did then in the whole course of my life. 

However, we did not suffer our hurts, which were 
not really serious, to delay us in exploring this hidden 
place that so suddenly and with such unnecessary vio- 
lence had opened to us. Pushing upward the ingen- 
iously contrived door from the bottom, we easily raised 
it until an opening was discovered the full height of a 
man; and through this we went into a narrow passage 


406 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


in the rock that in a moment turned and so brought 
us into a room that was nearly as large as the oratory 
that we had just left, and that, as we presently found, 
actually communicated with the oratory by means of 
two narrow slits high up in the wall; which apertures 
here were plainly visible, but on the other side were 
so cleverly disguised by an ingenious arrangement 
of the overlapping plates as to be entirely concealed. 
Like the oratory, too, this room had an opening in its 
roof through which air entered, and so much light that 
we could see about us plainly. And the very first 
glance that I cast around me in this strange place 
assured me that, by sheer accident, we had found 
our way at last to the secret chamber wherein King 
Chaltzantzin’s treasure had lain hidden for a thousand 
years. 

Rude shelves had been cut in the rock on all four 
sides of the room, and on these were ranged earthen 
pots of curious shapes, ornamented with strange de- 
vices that my newly acquired knowledge enabled me 
to recognize—to express the matter in the terms of 
our system of heraldry—as the arms of a king quarter- 
ed with the arms of certain princely houses or tribes. 
On these shelves, also, were many quaintly wrought 
vessels and some small square boxes, all of which were 
of gold—together with a score or so of small idols 
moulded in clay or roughly carved in stone, in which 
last the workmanship was so far inferior to that of the 
earthen-ware pots and golden vessels as to show at a 
glance that they were the product of a much earlier and 
ruder age; but belonging to the same age as the gold- 


THE TREASURE-CHAMBER. 407 


work, or to a period even later, was a very beautiful 
Calendar Store most delicately carved in obsidian, that 
was identical, save in the matter of size, with the great 
Calendar Stone that now is preserved in Mexico in 
the National Museum. This was placed at one end of 
the room upon a carved pedestal; and at the oppo- 
site end of the room, the end farthest removed from 
the entrance, was a great stone image of the god Chac 
Mool. Lying upon the Calendar Stone was what at first 
I took to be a cross-bow made of gold; but more care- 
ful examination convinced me, especially in view of the 
place where I had found it, that this certainly was an 
arbalest—called also a Jacob’s staff and a cross-staff— 
such as in no very ancient times, until the invention 
of the quadrant, was used by Europeans in taking the 
meridional altitude of the sun and stars. 

At the moment that I made this last most curious 
and exceedingly interesting discovery, Young, who had 
been investigating on his own account, gave a yell of 
delight, and bounded towards me flourishing his own 
brace of revolvers in his hands. ‘ They’re all here!” 
he cried. ‘All our guns are here, an’ th’ ca’tridges too! 
Now we have got the bulge on these devils for sure!” 

As he spoke I also was thrilled with joy at the 
thought of the vengeance which this recovery of our 
arms might enable us to take upon Fray Antonio’s 
murderers; but my joy was only momentary, for I 
could not but reflect that, after all, these Aztlanecas 
had but acted in accordance with their lights—except- 
ing only the Priest Captain, for whom the most cruel 
death would be all too merciful—and that our slaying 


408 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


them would not be vengeance, but mere brutal re- 
venge. Having which thoughts in mind, I answered, 
‘“ At least we can shoot ourselves with them, and so be 
safe from death by sacrifice.” 

“Not much we won’t shoot ourselves,” Young re- 
plied, with great energy; “an’ nobody’s goin’ t? come 
monkeyin’ ’round us with sacrifices, either. Why, man 
alive, we ain’t goin’ t’ stay here—not by a jugful! 
We're goin’ t’ hght right out o’ this an’ be smack off 
for home.” 

“How ?” I asked, blankly, and with real alarm; for 
the hot hope that had filled me at the thought of our 
having found a way of escape had vanished as I per- 
ceived that from this chamber there was no outlet save 
the hole in the roof; which hole also accounted for the 
current of air whereby my hope had been inspired. 
Therefore, when Young spoke in this extravagant fash- 
ion, the dread came over me that he was going mad. 

“How?” he answered, “why, through that Jack 
Mullins, of course. He 7s th’ tippin’ kind. I was just 
tryin’ him, while you was pokin’ ’round in that old rub- 
bish, when I happened t’ ketch sight of our guns; an’ 
seein’ them, you bet, made me bounce. Here goes for 
another shot at him! Stick somethin’ under him t’ 
keep him up when I heave.” 

I was so dazed by the stunning wonder and by the 
joy that Young’s words carried with them, that I obey- 
ed his order mechanically. With a grave seriousness 
he seated himself upon the head of the idol; and as the 
figure and the stone base upon which it rested settled 
down at the end upon which he sat, and its other end 


THE TREASURE-CHAMBER. 409 


correspondingly swung upward, showing beneath it a 
dark opening, I wedged up the mass with a heavy plate 
of gold that served as the lid of one of the boxes ranged 
upon the shelves. 

“It won’t do for us both together t’ go down there,” 
Young said, as he rose from his seat and we peered into 
the dark cavity. ‘‘ Mullins might take ’t into his fool 
head t’ shut himself up while we was down there, an’ 
that ud mean cold weather for Rayburn an’ Pablo. 
V’ll just jump down them steps an’ prospect a little, 
while you look after him t’ see that he keeps steady;” 
and with these words down he went into the hole. 

In five minutes or so he joined me again. “It don’t 
look like th’ nicest place I ever got into,” he said, “but 
I guess we'll have t’ take th’ chances on it. There’s a 
little room down there, an’ out o’ that a kind of a back 
entry leads into an everlastin’ big cave. But there 
seems t’ be a sort of a path runnin’ along in the cave 
— it’s all as dark as th’ devil—an’ as paths mostly have 
two ends to’em,I guess if we keep on long enough 
we'll get somewhere. We can’t stay here, that’s sure, 
sO we’ve just got t’ risk it, an’ th’ sooner we get Ray- 
burn down there th’ better. When he’s solidly safe, 
then we can do some prospectin’—by good-luck we’ve 
got lots o’ matches—an’ see where that path goes te. 
Just sling on your guns, Professor, an’ let’s mosey back 
an’ get th’ percession started. It’s hard lines on Ray- 
burn t’ tumble him into a hole like that when he’s feel- 
in’ so bad; but I guess it’s better t’ take th’ chances 
o’ killin’ him that way ourselves than it is t’ let these 
devils do it for sure. Come on!” 


410 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


While he was speaking, Young had buckled his re- 
volvers about his waist and had slung his rifle over 
his shoulder, and I also in like manner had armed my- 
self—whereby was restored to me a most comforting 
feeling of strength. As for Young, the recovery of his 
weapons seemed to make him grow two inches taller, 
and he swaggered in his walk. 


XXXVI. 


THE VENGEANCE OF THE GODS. 


Atmost in the moment that we thus found our- 
selves in condition to show fight again, the need for 
fighting seemed like to be forced upon us; for as we 
turned to leave the treasure-chamber we were startled 
by hearing a creaking sound that we knew came from 
the sliding upward of the grating in its metal grooves 
wherewith the entrance to our prison was made fast. 

We paused for a moment, and then Young motioned 
to me to follow him, stepping lightly; and as we came 
out into the oratory we heard a fresh creaking, by 
which we knew that the grating had been closed. 

“T guess it’s only th’ fellow puttin’ in th’ grub,” 
Young whispered. “ But go easy, Professor, an’ have 
your guns all handy, so’s you can shoot. If anybody 
has come in it won’t do t’ let ’em get out again. 
Only mind you don’t shoot unless you really have to. 
If there’s only two or three of ’em we’d better try t’ 


THE VENGEANCE OF THE GODS. 411 


club ’em with our Winchesters, so’s not t’ bring all 
hands down on us with a rush before we can get Ray- 
burn away.” 

As he spoke, we were assured that some one had 
entered when the grating was raised and had remained 
on our side of the grating when it was closed again, 
for we heard footsteps in the room where we ordinari- 
ly lay ; and then the footsteps drew nearer, as though 
the unseen person were examining the other rooms in 
search of us, and we knew that in another moment or 
two this person would enter the chamber wherein we 
were. Rayburn was lying so quietly that it seemed as 
though he had fallen into a swoon again ; and Pablo, 
as we could tell by hearing his sobs, had betaken him- 
self to the room in which El Sabio was tethered in 
search of solacing companionship. Young motioned 
me to stand on one side of the entrance to the oratory, 
and himself stood on the other; and thus we waited, 
while the footsteps rapidly drew nearer, in readi- 
ness most effectually to cut off the retreat of whoever 
might enter the room. 

The man who did enter, passing between us, was the 
Priest Captain. As he saw the wreck of the idol, and 
the opening in the wall behind where the idol had 
stood, he uttered an exclamation of alarm and rage ; 
and in the same moment some instinctive dread of the 
danger that menaced him caused him to turn suddenly 
around. So, for an instant, he confronted us—and 
never shall I forget the look of malignant hatred that 
was in his face as in that instant he regarded us, 
nor his quick despairing gesture at sight of Young 


412 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


standing there with his rifle raised. Even as he 
opened his mouth to cry out, before any sound came 
from his lips, the heavy barrel of Young’s rifle swept 
downward, and with a groan he fell. 

Had the blow struck fairly it could not but have split 
the man’s skull open; but he swerved aside a little as 
the rifle came down, and the weight of the stroke, 
glancing from his head, fell upon his shoulder. In an 
instant, dropping the rifle, Young was kneeling on his 
breast with a hand buried in the flabby flesh of his old 
throat, holding tight-gripped his windpipe. Except- 
ing only Rayburn, Young was the strongest man I 
ever knew (though, to be sure, at that time he was 
weakened by his then recent wound and by the priva- 
tions of his imprisonment), yet it was all that he could 
do to hold that old man down and to maintain his 
choking grasp. With a most desperate energy and a 
fierce strength that seemed out of all nature in a creat- 
ure so lean and old and shrivelled, the Priest Captain 
writhed and struggled in his efforts to throw Young 
off, and sought also to grasp Young’s throat with his 
long bony hands—while foam gathered on his thin 
lips, and his withered brown face grew black with 
congested blood, and his black eyes protruded until 
the half of the eyeballs, bloody with bursting veins, 
showed around the black, dilated pupils. And then 
his struggles slowly grew less and less violent, his 
knotted muscles gradually relaxed, his mouth fell open 
so that his tongue lolled out hideously, his legs and 
arms twitched a little spasmodically—and then he lay 
quite still. 


THE VENGEANCE OF THE GODS. 43 


For a minute or two longer Young maintained his 
grasp. Then rising to his feet, breathing heavily, he 
wiped the sweat from his face as he exclaimed, at the 
same moment giving the dead body a vicious kick: 
“You black devil, take that! Now I’ve squared ac- 
counts with you for killin’ th’ Padre—and it’s the best 
day’s work I’ve ever done !” 

Though the struggle between the two had been a 
very desperate one, there had been no noise about it. 
Through the whole fight Rayburn had remained buried 
in his death-like stupor ; and Pablo, though so near to 
us, had heard no sound of it at all. 

“Now, then, Professor,” Young said, when he had 
got his wind back,“ we’ve got t’ bounce. Th’ first 
thing t’ do is t’ fasten that gratin’ on our side, so’s no- 
body can get in here t’ bother us while we’re doin’ our 
skippin’. I guess we can sort o’ wedge it fast so’s t’ 
stand ’em off for an hour or two, anyway, an’ that’s 
time enough to give us a fair start.” 

“ We can do something better than that, I think,” I 
said, as we went together towards the grating. ‘Un- 
less I am much mistaken, only the Priest Captain knew 
about this sliding door and the treasure-chamber be- 
yond it. If we can restore to their places those three 
plates, and can close the door behind us, I am persuaded 
that so far as pursuit of us is concerned we shall be ab- 
solutely safe.” 

“Gosh!” Young exclaimed. ‘“ D’ you know, Pro- 
fessor, I wouldn’t ’a’ given you credit for havin’ that 
much common-sense. It’s a big idea, that is, an’ we'll 
try it on. But, all th’ same, we’ve got t’ make things 


414 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


as sure as we can, an’ this little job must be attended 
to first.” | 

As we approached the grating we saw two of the 
temple guard standing outside of it, apparently wait- 
ing for the Priest Captain’s return; and these men 
looked at us with such evident suspicion that I feared 
for the success of our plans. “Just talk to’em,” Young 
said, hurriedly. “Talk to ’em about th’ last election, 
or chicken-coops, or anything you please, while I take 
a look ’round an’ see how we're goin’ t’? get this job 
done.” 

Young dropped behind me, and then aside and so out 
of sight, as I advanced to the grating and spoke to 
the men, whose faces somewhat cleared as I told them 
that the Priest Captain desired that they should wait 
there a little longer. And then I managed to hold their 
interest for some minutes while I spoke about the devil 
that was in El Sabio, and about other devils of a like 
sort whom I had known in my time. While I thus 
spoke I heard a little tinkling sound, as of metal strik- 
ing against stone—but if the soldiers also heard it they 
paid no attention to it—and then Young whispered, 
“We're solid now; come on!” Whereupon I quickly 
ended my imaginative discourse upon demoniac don- 
keys, and with no appearance of haste we walked away. 

“Tt was just as easy as rollin’ off a log,” Young said, 
jubilantly. “There was a big gold peg stickin’ there 
all ready t’ slide into a slot, so’s t’ hold th’ gratin’ 
down, an’ all I had t’ do was t’ slide it. I guess, with 
a plug like that holdin’ that gratin’ fast, they’ll need 
jacks t? open it. Th’ only other way t’ start it "ll be 


THE VENGEANCE OF THE GODS. 415 


rammin’ it with a bit o’ timber; but bustin’ it in that 
way ’ll take a lot o’ time, an’ half an hour’s plenty for 
all we’ve got t’ do. If you’re straight in thinkin’ no- 
body knows about that slidin’ door we’re solid.” 

I felt very sure in my own mind that I was right in 
believing that only the Priest Captain had known of 
this secret opening; for, after him, the most likely per- 
son to have knowledge of it was the keeper of the 
archives, and that he was altogether ignorant of it I 
was well assured. ‘Therefore I most cheerfully helped 
Young, so far as my unskilful hands could be useful, 
in the work of restoring the gold plates to the places 
whence the lightning had wrenched them loose; and 
when this work was done, so cleverly did Young man- 
age it, there was no possibility of distinguishing the 
door from any other portion of the wall; nor was there 
then a sign of any sort remaining to show that by the 
passage of a thunder-bolt the idol had been destroyed. 

As we were finishing this piece of work we heard 
the soldiers at the grating calling to the Priest Cap- 
tain—at first in low tones, and then more loudly ; and 
then we heard them give a yell together, which con- 
vinced us that they had tried to raise the grating and 
had found that it was fastened down. 

The ten minutes that followed was the most ex- 
citing time that ever, I passed through. Notwith- 
standing the secure fashion in which the grating was 
fastened, we could not but dread that those outside 
had knowledge of some means whereby it could be 
loosened; and in any event there was no doubt but 
that they could force a way in upon us by beating it 


416 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


down. Therefore we knew that there was no safety 
for us until we were fairly out of the oratory, and 
had closed behind us the sliding door—and with such 
difficult material to deal with as Rayburn, who still 
lay in a heavy stupor, and Pablo, whom sorrow had 
wellnigh crazed, we found it hard to make such haste 
as the sharp exigency of our situation required. 
Pablo, indeed, was so lost in wonder at finding the 
broken idol, and the dead body of the Priest Captain, 
and a door open in the solid wall, that what little re- 
mained of his wits disappeared entirely; so that we 
had almost to carry him—while El Sabio most intelli- 
gently followed him—into the treasure-chamber, and 
there we left the two together while we returned for 
Rayburn. And as we lifted the stretcher our hearts 
bounded, for at that instant there was a tremendous 
crash at the grating; whereby we knew that those 
without had brought to bear against it some sort of a 
battering-ram that they might beat it in. 

“Tt’s a close call,” Young said between his teeth; 
and added, as we rested the stretcher inside the pas- 
sage while we closed behind us the sliding door: “If 
you’re off your base, Professor, an’ they do know th’ 
trick o? this thing, it may be all day with us yet—but 
it’s a comfort t’ know that even if they do finish us 
we'll everlastin’ly salt ’em first with our guns.” 

We heard another great crash behind us, but faintly 
now that the sliding door was closed, as we went on 
ward into the treasure-chamber ; and here we heard 
the like sound again, more clearly, through the slits 
cut in the wall. As gently as our haste, and the awk- 


THE VENGEANCE OF THE GODS. 417 


wardness of that narrow way would permit, we lifted 
Rayburn from the stretcher, and so carried him down 
the short flight of stairs beneath the upraised statue 
to the little chamber that there was hollowed in the 
rock. Here we laid him upon the stretcher again ; 
and then, without any ceremony whatever, we bun- 
dled Pablo and El Sabio down the hole. It was a 
smaller aperture, even, than that through which we 
had come forth from the Cave of the Dead, and how 
El Sabio was able to condense himself sufficiently to 
get through it will remain a puzzle to me to my dying 
day. 

All this while we could hear plainly, through the 
slits in the wall, the crashing blows which every 
minute or so were delivered against the grating, to- 
gether with a shrill roar of shouts and yells ; and we 
knew that before this vigorous assault the grating 
must give way within a very brief period, and so let 
in the whole yelping pack. If I were right in my be- 
lief that the Priest Captain alone knew of the secret 
outlet to the oratory, we still would be safe enough, 
and could make some preliminary examination of the 
cave before we closed the way behind us irrevocably 
by letting the statue fall back into its place ; but if I 
were mistaken, then there was nothing for us but to 
take the chance of life and death by going on blindly 
into that black cavern, after wedging fast the under 
side of the statue in such a way that it no longer 
could be swung open from above. 

It was most necessary, therefore, that we should 
see what course our enemies would take when they 

27 


418 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


came into the oratory and found it empty of us, and 
the idol broken, and the Priest Captain lying dead 
there; and, that we might compass this end, Young 
and I returned into the treasure-chamber and mounted 
upon a ledge that seemed to have been provided for 
a standing-place — whence we had a clear view into 
the oratory through the slits in the wall, And at the 
very moment that we thus stationed ourselves there 
reverberated through those rock-hewn chambers a 
deafening crash and a jingling clang of metal and a 
rattle of falling stone ; and with this came a yell of 
triumph and arush of footsteps—and then, in an in- 
stant, the oratory was full of soldiers and priests, all 
yelling together like so many fiends. 

But upon this violent hubbub there fell a hush of 
awe and wonder as those who had thus tumultuously 
entered the oratory saw the Priest Captain lying dead 
amid the fragments of the shattered idol, and per- 
ceived that the prisoners who had been shut within 
these seemingly solid walls had vanished utterly away; 
and then a sobbing murmur, that presently swelled 
into moans and cries of terror, arose from the throng ; 
and in a moment more, seized by a common impulse, 
the whole company bowed downward, in suppliant 
dread of the gods by whom such direful wonders had 
been wrought. 

Young gave a long sigh of relief, and with a most 
mouth-filling oath whispered in my ear, ‘‘ They haven’t 
tumbled to it, an’ we’re all right!” 

As we gazed at these terror-stricken creatures, a 
thought occurred to me on which I promptly acted. . 


THE VENGEANCE OF THE GODS. 419 


“Get both of your revolvers pointed through that 
hole,” I whispered to Young. ‘ Point high, so that the 
valls will not hit anybody ; and when I begin to shoot 
do you shoot also, and as quickly as you can. Mind, 
you are not to hit anybody,” I added; for I saw by 
the look on Young’s face that he longed to fire into 
the crowd point-blank. For answer he gave me a 
rather sulky nod of assent; but I saw by the way that 
he held his pistols that my order was obeyed. ‘‘ Now,” 
I said, ‘‘ Fire!”—and as rapidly as self-acting revolvers 
would do it, we poured twenty-four shots through the 
slits in the wall. No doubt several people were hurt 
by balls bounding back from the rock, but I am confi- 
dent that nobody was killed. 

When we ceased firing it was impossible to see any- 
thing in the oratory, because of the dense cloud of 
sulphurous smoke wherewith it was filled; but such 
shrieks and yells of soul-racking terror as came from 
beneath that black canopy I hope I may never hear 
again. I waited a little, until this wild outburst had 
somewhat quieted, and then—placing my mouth close 
to one of the openings and speaking in a voice that 
I tried to make like that of Fray Antonio—I said, in 
deep and solemn tones, ‘‘ Behold the vengeance of the 
strangers’ God!” 

What effect my words produced I cannot tell. Our 
firing must have loosened a fragment of rock between 
the gold plating that lined the oratory and the outer 
surface of the wall, and even as I spoke this fragment 
fell. With its fall the opening was irrevocably closed. 

“That was a boss dodge,” said Young, as he re- 


420 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


eharged his revolver. “Those fellows "H just think 
hell’s broke loose in here, for sure; and I guess after 
they’ve onct fairly got outside they’ll rather be skinned 
alive than come back again. But what did you say to 
?em? Hearin’ you talkin’ like th’ Padre, that way, 
gave me a regular jolt. Don’t you think, though, may- 
be it was a little bit risky t’ give ourselves away ?” 

But when I had repeated in English the words which 
I had spoken, Young very seriously shook hands with 
me. ‘Shake!’ he said. “I’ve done you injustice, 
Professor. Sometimes Pve thought that you was too 
much asleep for your own good—but if anybody ever 
did anything more wide awake than that, Id like t’ 
know what he did and who he was. Why, when those 
fellows tell about all that’s been goin’ on in here— 
about their busted idol, an’ their dead Priest Captain, 
an’ our skippin,’ an’ this row our shootin’ has made, 
an’ then about th’ Padre’s ghost talkin’ to ’em that 
way—it’s bound t’ give ’em such a jolt that th’ whole 
outfit *11 slew smack round an’ be Christians right 
off !” 

Some such notion as this had been in my own mind 
as I executed the plan that on the spur of the moment 
I had formed. When, later, I thought about it more 
calmly, I could not but regret, for Fray Antonio’s sake, 
my hasty action; for he would have been the very last 
man to approve of such stringent methods of advanc- 
ing the Christian faith. If any result came from my 
demonstration, it certainly came through terror; and 
the essence of Fray Antonio’s doctrine, as it was also 
of his own nature, was gentleness and love. 


THROUGH DARKNESS TO LIGHT. 421 


XXXVI. 
THROUGH DARKNESS TO LIGHT. 


‘“‘T guEss we’re solid now, as far as bein’ bothered 
by those scared devils goes,” Young said, as we step- 
ped down from the ledge of rock on which we had 
been standing; “but this ain’t no time t’ take no 
chances, an’ th’ sooner we see what show we’ve got for 
gettin’ anywhere through that cave, th’ better it’ll be. 
An’ we’ve got t’ look after Rayburn. He’s closter t’ 
handin’ in his checks t’-day than he’s been at all. Just 
think o’ him keepin’ still through all that row, an’ let- 
tin’ himself be yanked around like a bag o’ meal with- 
out takin’ any notice of it! But there’s just a squeal 
of a chance for him if we do get clear away. Knowin’ 
that he’s safe ll do him more good, even, than fresh 
air an’ stnshine—an’ oh Lord! how good fresh air an’ 
sunshine ’ll be, if ever we do strike ’em again !” 

When we descended the stair-way again to the little 
hollow in the rock where Rayburn was lying, we found 
that he still remained in his dull stupor and took no 
notice of our coming. Close beside were Pablo and 
El Sabjo, huddled together for mutual support in this 
very trying passage of their lives. El Sabio, indeed, 
was a most melancholy and dejected creature, for his 
short “sommons and his long confinement had taken the 
apart out of him pretty thoroughly; but for our pur- 


422 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


poses just then, when his tractability was very neces- 
sary to us, it was a piece of good-fortune that he had 
fallen into so low a way. As for Pablo, the boy was 
in so dazed a condition that I feared greatly he would 
wholly lose his wits. 

There was only a faint suggestion of light in that 
deeply hidden place, and Young struck a match that 
he might see to begin his explorations. ‘‘ Well, I'll be 
shot,” he exclaimed, as the wax-taper shed its clear 
light around us, “if here ain’t a conductor’s lantern 
hangin’ up all ready for us, an’ a can o’ kerosene oil !” 
As he lighted the lantern, and the letters F. C. C. show- 
ed clearly on the glass, he added, in a tone of still 
greater amazement: “ Ferro-Carril Central! Why, it 
b’longs t’ one o’ th’ boys on th’ Central!—but how th’ 
dickens did it ever get here? Am’ here’s a lot of old 
clothes—th’ sort o’ rags th’ low-down Greasers wear. 
An’ [m blest,” he went on, as he picked up a scrap of 
paper from the floor, “if this ain’t a Mexican Central 
ticket from Leon to Silao! It’s dated last June, an’ 
it’s only punched once, so ’t couldn’t ’a’ been used all 
the way. I say, Professor, am I asleep or awake?” 

As I examined the several articles which we had 
come upon so strangely in this incongruous place, a flood 
of light was let in upon my mind, and with this came 
also the glad certainty that the way before us to free- 
dom was open and assured. My belief that the Priest 
Captain had been in communication with the outside 
world no longer admitted of a doubt, for here was ab- 
solute proof of it: the clothes which he wore when 
making his expeditions into the nineteenth century; 


THROUGH DARKNESS TO LIGHT. 493 


the lantern that he had stolen in order the more easily 
to find his way through the cave; the railway ticket 
that he had but lately used. In an instant I had con- 
nected all this with what the guardian of the archives 
had told me concerning the Priest Captain’s habit of 
retiring for long periods of time to one of the cham- 
bers in which we had been imprisoned, and the whole 
matter was as plain to me as day; and I knew now, 
that in order to guard against discovery, he, or one of 
his predecessors, to whom this secret way must also 
have been known, had caused to be set in place the 
fastening by which the grating could be secured upon 
its inner side; which fastening, within that very hour, 
had been the means of saving our lives. 

“ Well,” said Young, dryly, when I had briefly ex- 
plained these several matters, “I guess he won’t pull 
th’ wool over nobody’s eyes any more! An’ now you 
an’ me ll do some prospectin’. We must go back up- 
stairs, before we pull out for good, an’ bag what there 
is there that’s worth carryin’ off; but th’ first thing t’ 
do is t’ get Rayburn where he’ll be comfortable an’ 
safe. Until that’s attended to we’ve got t? be careful 
an’ go slow; so we’ll rouse up this fool of a Pablo, an’ 
get it into his head that if he hears anybody comin’ 
he’s t’ knock th’ plug from under Mullins an’ let him 
down, an’ then chock him fast with a rock underneath. 
It’s not likely that anybody will come, an’ even if they 
do, I don’t think that they’ll know th’ trick about Mul- 
lins’ tippin’, for that’s a point that Pll bet a whole kag 
0’ beer th’ Priest Captain didn’t give away t’ nobody. 
I tell you, Professor, there wasn’t any flies on that old 


424 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


man, now was there? He was a wicked old devil, an’ 
I’m glad I did for him; but he was just an everlastin’ 
keen one, an’ a rustler from th’ word go!” 

In the dazed condition in which he then was, we 
scarcely should have ventured to place Pablo in a po- 
sition of such grave responsibility had there been any 
likelihood of his being called upon to perform the duty 
with which we charged him; but we were well satis- 
fied that to the Priest Captain alone had been known 
the secret of the sliding door, and that, consequently, 
the need for closing the passage leading upward into 
the treasure-chamber would not arise. Without any 
fear for Rayburn’s safety, therefore, we left him lying 
in the little room at the foot of the stair-way, and 
thence went forth through a cleft in the rock—that 
seemed to be a natural crevice, where the mountain was 
split apart—and so came into a natural cave of such 
great size that the light of the lantern was not sufii- 
cient to enable us to see its roof nor its farther wall. 
Save that the well-defined path that we followed was 
continuously steep, we did not find walking difficult, 
for the fragments of rock with which the floor of the 
cave everywhere was strewn had been lifted aside 
carefully, so as to make a smooth and easy way. And 
only in one place—where for a short distance the 
path skirted the edge of a black gulf, in the depths of 
which we could hear the rush of water—was any part 
of it dangerous. 

For near an hour we went onward, all the while 
steadily ascending; and then, as we turned a corner, 
we saw a long way before us a faintly luminous haze. 


THROUGH DARKNESS TO LIGHT. 425 


It was so very faint that only by holding the lantern 
behind us, and then closing our eyes for a moment, 
could we assure ourselves that what we saw really was 
light at all; but when we turned another corner, pres- 
ently, the light, though still faint, was unmistakable ; 
whereat Young gave a whoop of joy, and we quickened 
our steps in our eager longing to behold the sunshine 
that we knew could not be far away. Suddenly the 
path dipped downward, and then another turn brought 
us into light so strong that the lantern no longer was. 
needed to show us where to tread; and by a common 
impulse we gave a great glad shout together and went 
onward at a run; and so, running and shouting like the 
crazy creatures that truly for the time being we were, 
we made one turn more, and then beheld before us, 
reaching away broadly and openly in a fashion to give 
one a sense of most glorious freedom, a vastly wide 
plain, over which everywhere the blessed sunshine 
blazed full and strong. As we stood together in the 
mouth of the cave for a moment in silence—for no 
words seemed strong enough to express the bursting 
gladness that was in our hearts—two short blasts of a 
whistle, wafted upward on the light breeze that was 
blowing towards us from the plain, sounded very faint- 
ly but clearly in our ears. Young started as he heard 
this sound, and as he turned towards me he held out 
his hand and said, in a voice that was husky and trem- 
ulous, “ Professor, that’s a locomotive whistle, an’ th’ 
d—n fool is—is whistlin’ ‘down brakes’! And in 
these curiously chosen, yet not unmeaning words, did 
we celebrate our deliverance. 


426 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE, 


When we returned to Rayburn—and as we now 
knew the way, and as almost the whole of it was down- 
hill, our return was accomplished rapidly—some of the 
joyous strength that we had gained seemed to be im- 
parted to him. He opened his eyes as we stooped over 
him, and there seemed to be more life in them than 
there had been through all that day. 

“ Rouse up, old man!” Young cried cheerily. “We've 
struck th’ trail out o’ this cussed hole at last, an’ we’re 
goin’ t’ hike you right along t’ where you’ll get some of 
God’s sunshine again, an’ some air that’s fit for a white 
man t’ breathe ;” which words brought still more light 
into Rayburn’s eyes, and a little color came into his 
pale cheeks as we told him of the open way that we 
had found to light and life. 

““W here’s the Padre?” he asked, as we together raised 
the stretcher, while Pablo, holding the lantern and lead- 
ing El Sabio, went on ahead of us. Fortunately Ray- 
burn could not see Young’s face as he answered: “ Th’ 
Padre’s — well, th’ Padre’s just gone on up th’ line. 
You’ve got t’ hold your jaw, Rayburn. You ain’t fit 
t? talk; an’ while we’re packin’ you along we can’t talk 
either. Come on, Professor; and you, Pablo,” he add- 
ed, in his jerky Spanish. “ Be careful with that lamp 
or Pll break the head of you!” 

Although a good third of his flesh had wasted away, 
Rayburn would have been a heavy load for us to carry 
over level ground, even had we been hale and strong. 
Worn as we then were by our prison-life, we found 
carrying him up that long steep path in the heart of 
the mountain a weary work that only the hope and 


THROUGH DARKNESS TO LIGHT. 437 


joy that strengthened us enabled us to accomplish. As 
it was, we went so slowly, and made so many halts for 
rest, that the sun had sunk almost to the level of the 
distant mountains, wherewith that great plain was bor- 
dered to the westward, when at last our toilsome jour- 
ney was at an end. But we thought nothing of the 
heaviness of our labor as we saw the glad look that 
came into his face when he gazed out over that broad 
expanse of sunlit landscape, and snuffed eagerly the 
sweet fresh air, and so felt his soul grow light within 
him as he realized that he once more was safe and 
free. 

In the mouth of the cave—within its shelter, yet 
where he could see out freely, and so have constantly 
in his mind the comforting thought of his deliverance 
—we made a bed for him of soft pine-branches, which 
some near-by trees gave us; and we took care that this 
couch should be so thick and so evenly laid that he 
would lie easily upon it; for we knew that many days, 
perhaps even weeks, must pass before we could venture 
to put so heavy a strain upon his strength as would 
come when we carried him down that rough mountain- 
side, and so began our journey towards home. 

Fortunately, a little spring came out from the rock, 
clear and cool, just inside the cave; and game was 
so abundant on that mountain-side that Young came 
back presently from a foraging expedition with half a 
dozen codornices, that he had come so close to as to 
shoot with his revolver, and a jack-rabbit that he act- 
ually had caught with his hands as it jumped up al- 
most beneath his feet; which excellent fare made a 


428 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


most satisfying supper for all of us; and eating it so 
added to Rayburn’s strength—as we could tell by the 
fuller tones of his voice, and by his being able to move 
a little on his bed without our helping him—as to 
rouse in us a warm hope that the death that seemed so 
near to him might yet be thrust away. Our chief con- 
cern, lest the shock that would come to him of knowing 
it should fairly kill him, was to hide from him for the 
present the knowledge that Fray Antonio was dead; 
and to compass this end we plumply told him the flat- 
footed lie that the monk had gone on in search of some 
town whence he might bring back horses and supplies ; 
and so, for a time, we laid at rest his doubts. 

In his own original way, also, Young tried to put 
heart into him. “You see, old man,” he said, “ you’ve 
just got t? pull through. Think how d d ashamed 
o’ yourself you’d feel after you was dead when you 
had t’ tell all th’ folks in heaven that you was killed by 
nothin’ better’n a mis’rable chump of an Injun! That 
was what bothered poor old Steve Hollis when he was 
handin’ in Ais checks—’t least it was th’ same gener- 
al sort of idea. I guess you never knew Steve, did 
you, Rayburn? He was an old railroader—had been 
a-workin’ on th’ Old Colony one way and another for 
more’n twenty years. When I knowed him he used t’ 
run th’ steamboat express from Boston t’ Fall River 
—their boss train on that blasted old road. Steve 
owned a house clost t’ th’ line just a little way out 0” 
Braintree ; an’ when ’t was his day off he’d mostly slide 
down from Fall River on No. 2, an’ walk out home 
from Braintree along th’ track. Nobody ever know’d 


THROUGH DARKNESS TO LIGHT. 429 


just how ’t happened—Steve was th’ soberest man I 
ever knowed ; never drunk a drop o’ nothin’—but one 
day, as he was walkin’ out home, No. 15, that was th’ 
slow freight from Boston t’ Newport, ketched him an’ 
got in its work on him—an’ that was th’ end o’ Steve. 
It didn’t kill him right smack off, an’ I went down t’ 
see him; for I did think th’ world of old Steve. He 
was a-layin’ in his bed, an’ I could see that he was 
a-most gone when I got there; but he chippered up a 
little for a minute as I shook hands with him and ast 
him how he was. He said he was poorly ; an’ then he 
kep’ quiet for a while. Then he kind o’ ketched his 
breath an’ seemed t’ want t’ say somethin’. So I bent 
over him, an’ he said, in a kind of a whisperin’ groan: 
‘Jus’ think of it, Seth, what did it was th’ slow freight ! 
That’s what cuts me; that’s what cuts me the worst 
kind. I wouldn’t a-minded if ’t had been th’ express— 
them things will happen, an’ they’ve got t’ come. But 
here I’ve been a-railroadin’ for more’n twenty year, 
an’ t’ think o’ me bein’ busted by that d n slow 
freight!’ An’ then he turned over, an’ give a sort of 
a grunt, an’ died.” 

Tam not sure that I myself should have selected this 
particular story to tell to Rayburn just then; but the 
moral that it contained unquestionably was a sound 
one, and, in a way, was calculated to impress upon him 
strongly the conviction that his duty was to get well. 


480 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


XX XVIII. 
KING CHALTZANTZIN’S TREASURE. 


WHETHER or not Young’s story had this good effect 
upon Rayburn, I am not prepared to say; but it is 
certain that he slept well that night — his first good 
night’s sleep for many weeks—and that when morning 
came he was so much stronger and brighter as to fill 
us with a still more earnest hope that he was well start- 
ed on the way to recovery. 

Young quickly brought in some birds for our break- 
fast, and when the meal was finished he took me aside and 
said: “‘ Now, Professor, lets me an’ you go back t’ that 
hole an’ bring away all there is there that’s worth car- 
ryin’. It’s not much, I guess, but it’s better’n nothin’. 
It just makes me sick t’ think of all that gold, that 
ud ’a’ made our everlastin’ fortunes if we’d only been 
able t? pack it along with us. ‘There was millions an’ 
millions there, I s’pose—an’ it 711 never do us any more 
good than if we’d never seen it at all!” and as Young 
spoke he heaved a very melancholy sigh. ‘‘ But we 
may as well grab all we can get,” he went on, more 
cheerfully. “There was a lot o’ gold boxes an’ jugs 
in th’ room where Mullins is; an’ maybe there’s some- 
thin’ that’s worth havin’ in all them little pots. Let’s 
go back an’ see, anyway. Rayburn’s lookin’ almost all 
right this mornin’; and Pablo’s got his wits back now, 
an’ can give him anything he wants.” 


KING CHALTZANTZIN’S TREASURE. 431 


For my own part I did not desire, because of their 
money value, any of the articles which I had seen in 
the treasure-chamber ; but I did very earnestly long 
to possess myself of that most curious arbalest, and I 
desired also to examine carefully—because of the dis- 
coveries of great archzological value which I hoped to 
make—the contents of the gold boxes and vases and 
earthen jars. ‘Therefore, Rayburn having expressed 
his entire willingness that we should leave him, I 
assented readily to Young’s proposition ; whereupon 
Young lighted the lantern and we set off. 

As we entered again the treasure-chamber there 
was within me a strong feeling of awe. During our 
hurried passage through it, the imminent danger in 
which we were, and then the excitement of the scene 
in the oratory, and then the joyfulness of our finding a 
way of escape, had prevented me from realizing how 
wonderful was the deposit that this room contained; a 
deposit that certainly had lain there for not less than a 
thousand years, and that unquestionably was the most 
perfect surviving trace of the most intelligent and 
most interesting people that in prehistoric times dwelt 
upon this continent. Which strange reflections, now 
that my mind was free to entertain them and to dwell 
upon them, aroused within me a feeling of such rev- 
erent wonder that I hesitated for some moments before 
I could bring myself to disturb what thus through so 
long a sweep of ages had remained sacredly inviolate. 

But reverence, as he himself would have said, was 
not Young’s strongest hold; in truth, I am persuaded 
that there was not an atom of it in his entire composi- 


432 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


tion; and as I stood hesitating beside the statue of 
Chac-Mool he briskly called to me: “ Come right along, 
Professor; there ain’t nobody t’ stop us now. We’ve 
got th’ drop, you might say, on th’ whole outfit, an’ we 
can do just as we blame please. This looks like a bad- 
ly kept drug store, don’t it?” he went on, “with all 
these pots an’ boxes an’ little jars stuck round on th’ 
shelves. Well, here goes t’ see what’s in ’em: not much 
o’ nothin’, I guess; but then it might be di’monds, an’ 
that just would be gay!” 

As Young spoke he thrust his hand into one of the 
earthen jars, and thereby set flying such a cloud of 
dust that for some seconds his violent sneezing pre- 
vented him from examining the small object that he 
had brought forth from the jar and held in his hand ; 
and when he did examine this object an expression of 
intense disgust appeared upon his face, and he exclaim- 
ed, indignantly, “ Why, it’s nothin’ but a fool arrow- 
head !” 

I could not but laugh at Young as I took the arrow- 
head from him. For my purposes, this beautifully 
carved piece of obsidian was far more precious than a 
diamond would have been; and I tried—quite unsuc- 
cessfully, however—to arouse his interest in this proof 
of the high degree of skill to which the prehistoric 
races of America had attained in the manipulation of 
an exceedingly hard yet delicate variety of stone; and 
I added that not less interesting was the proof thus af- 
forded us of the great value which these same races 
attached to implements of war. 

“Oh, come off with your prehistoric races, Professor !” 


KING CHALTZANTZIN ’S TREASURE. 433 


he growled. ‘A whole car-load o’ rubbish like this 
wouldn’t be worth a nickel t’ anybody but a scientific 
crank like you. If this is th’ sort o’ stuff that that old 
king o’ yours thought was worth hidin’, I guess he 
must ’a’ been off his head. But that pot may ’a’ got in 
by mistake. Before I get too much down on him I'll 
give him another show.” With which words, but cau- 
tiously, that the dust might not be disturbed, he thrust 
his hand into another jar, and was mightily resentful 
upon finding that what he brought forth from it was 
only the head of a lance. However, the determination 
to give King Chaltzantzin a chance to prove his sanity, 
together with the hope that something of real value 
might be found, led him to continue his investigations, 
and he presently had examined all the jars ranged on 
two sides of the room; and his grumbling curses in- 
creased constantly in vigor as jar after jar yielded only 
arrow-heads, and lance-heads, and chisel-shaped pieces 
of obsidian, that I perceived must have been intended 
for the making of the cutting edges of the maccahuitl, 
or Aztec sword; but, for my part, all of these things 
filled me with the liveliest pleasure as I took them from 
Young and attentively examined them; for the delicate 
and perfect workmanship that they exhibited showed 
them to have been made by a people that had reached 
the highest development of the Stone Age. ) 

“This business is gettin’ worse, instead o’ better,” 
Young said, gloomily, as he began his search on the 
third side of the room by opening one of the small 
gold boxes. “The stuff in here is nothin’ but a mean 
sort o’ wrappin’-paper with pictures on it—like that old 

28 


434 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


map o’ yours that got us started on this tomfoolin’ 
treasure-hunt. I s’pose yow ll just have a fit over it!” 
And as I uttered an eager cry of delight, and bent over 
this casket that contained such inestimable riches, he 
gave a sniff of contempt, and added: “ There, I thought 
so. You think more o’ that rotten old stuff than you 
would o’ gold dollars. Well, there’s no accountin’ for 
tastes, and it takes all sorts o’ people t? make th’ 
world.” But I paid no attention to him as I rapidly 
glanced over these priceless manuscripts ; and then had 
my cup of happiness filled absolutely to overflowing 
by the glad discovery that in every one of the gold 
boxes, of which there were nine in all, treasures of a 
like sort were stored. In the supplemental volume (in 
elephant folio) to my Pre-Columbian Conditions on the 
Continent of North America these wonderful manu- 
scripts are reproduced in fac-simile; and when that 
great work is published the surpassing value of my 
discovery will be at once recognized. It is sufficient 
to say here that these several codices together con- 
stituted a complete hieratic chronicle of the Aztec 
tribes; and that (herein lying the extraordinary value 
of the collection) the uncertain picture-writing was ac- 
companied by a translation into the ideographic char- 
acters of later times, the meaning of which I was er 
abled, thanks to the instruction that my friend the 
guardian of the archives had given me, fully to under- 
stand. In short, my discovery precisely paralleled that 
of Boussard ; for even as the Rosetta Stone gave the 
key to Egyptian hieroglyphics, so did this translitera- 
tion into intelligible characters make all Aztec picture- 


KING CHALTZANTZIN’S TREASURE. 435 


writing plain. As the full significance of my discovery 
burst upon me, my joy and the excitement of my 
splendid triumph so moved me that my hands trembled 
as I held these precious manuscripts, and I no longer 
could see clearly the painted characters because of the 
tears of happiness which filled my eyes. 

Young, however, whose longing was only for mate- 
rial treasure, continued his investigations in anything 
but a thankful mood. ‘There ain’t no doubt of it 
now,” he said presently in a most melancholy tone, 
“That old king o’ yours must ’a’ been just as crazy as 
aloon. Look here: this thing ain’t even a fool arrow- 
head ; it’s nothin’ but a bit o’ green glass! I reckon 
it’s part o’ th’ bottom of a porter-bottle. Nice sort 0’ 
stuff this is t’ call treasure, an’ t’ take such an all-fired 
lot o’ trouble t? hide away! Why, I should jedge that 
that king must ’a’ spent most of his time settin’ up 
nights a-puzzlin’ over plans for makin’ sure that he was 
th’ very d dest biggest fool that ever lived !—an’ 
that’s just what he was, for sure! It’s tough, gettin’ 
left this way ; but it wouldn’t begin t’ be as tough as 
+ is if *t wasn’t for all them car-loads an’ car-loads 0’ 
gold right clost by us here that we might ’a’ got away 
with as easy as rollin’ off a log if we’d only ketched on 
to this back-door racket in time. An’ see here, Pro- 
fessor,” he went on in a very earnest tone, ‘‘I don’t be- 
lieve there’s anybody in there now; why shouldn’t we 
just chance things a little an’ go back an’ get some of it ? 
We’ve got our guns; an’ even if we do strike a crowd 
too big for us t’ tackle, an’ have t’ run for it, we won’t 
be no worse off ’an we are now. Come, let’s try it on!” 


436 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


While Young spoke I had been looking closely at 
the object that so violently had excited his indigna- 
tion, and instead of replying to him I asked, “ Are 
there any more pieces of that porter-bottle in the jar?” 

“It’s full of ’em,” he answered with a contemptuous 
brevity. 

‘And the next ?” 

“That’s full of ’em too. All th’ jars on this side 0’ 
th’ room are full of ’em,” he added, as he rapidly thrust 
his hand into one after another—and so set the dust 
to flying that we both fell to sneezing as though we 
would sneeze our heads off. “Oh come along, Profess- 
or: what’s th’ use o’ foolin’ over this rubbish; let’s go 
for th’ stuff that’s good for its weight in spot cash 
every time !” 

“Wait till we see what is in these gold vases over 
here,” I answered, turning as I spoke to the side of 
the room that as yet we had not examined. 

*'What’s th’ good ?” he asked, sulkily. But he lifted 
down one of the vases, and with his thumb and fin- 
ger brought forth from it a little round black ball. 
“Worse an’ worse,” he said, as he handed the ball to 
me. “We’ve got down t’ what looks like lumps 0’ 
shoemaker’s wax now. That’s about th’ sickest look- 
in’ thing t’ call itself treasure I ever did see !” 

It did not seem to me probable that the little ball 
was shoemaker’s wax; but in order to settle this point 
experimentally I cut into it with my penknife. Under 
the gummy exterior I found a layer of cotton-wool, 
and enclosed in this a hard substance about the size of 
a hazel-nut. While I was making this examination, 


KING CHALTZANTZIN’S TREASURE. 437 


Young investigated into the contents of the remaining 
vases—which themselves were exceedingly interesting, 
being made of hammered gold and most curiously en- 
graved. 

“They’re no good,” he said, “except I s’pose th’ 
mugs must be worth somethin’. Shoemaker’s wax in 
?em all! It’s worse ’an th’ porter-bottles—for what’s 
th’ use o’ shoemaker’s wax t’ folks who don’t rightly 
know what a shoe is? Come along, I say, Professor, 
an’ let’s have a whack at them piles o’ gold. If we 
don’t tackle ’°em we might just as well never have 
come on this treasure-hunt at all. Some o’ the stuff in 
here’s worth havin’—th’ gold mugs an’ boxes, an’ that 
old gold bow-gun that you’re so busted about—but 
what does th’ whole of it amount to, anyway, when 
you come t’ divide it up among four men an’ a jack- 
ass? I guess even th’ jackass ud turn up his nose at it if 
he knowed what a lot more there was that was t’ be 
had for just grabbin’ it an’ packin’ it along. It’s some- 
thin’, I s’pose, that we’ve pulled through without losin’ 
our hair; but we have pulled through all right, an’ 
now we want t’ make this business pay; an’ unless we 
go for that gold this business won’t ’a’ paid worth a 
cuss—an’ instead 0’ comin’ out on top we'll be left th’ 
very worst kind!” 

As Young was delivered of this dismal remonstrance 
I handed him the small object that I had extracted 
from the pitch-coated ball. “Before you make up 
your mind that we are likely to be ‘left,’ as you term 
it, suppose you look at this,” I said. 

He held out his hand carelessly; but as he saw what 


438 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


I had placed in it his expression suddenly changed, 
and he burst forth excitedly: “Great Scott! where 
did this come from? Why—why, Professor, it looks 
like it was a pearl; but if ’t truly is one it’s about th’ 
bustin’est biggest one that Godamighty ever made! 
Do you truly size it up for a pearl yourself?” 

“Most assuredly,” I answered. ‘And it is a fair 
assumption, I think, that there is a pearl in each one 
of all these little pitch-covered balls. As to what you 
called bits of green glass, they are neither more nor 
less than extraordinarily fine emeralds; I should say 
that the smallest of them must be worth more dollars 
than you could carry at a single load. Of course, all 
the emeralds and pearls together are not worth a single 
one of these manuscripts ”—here Young gave a scep- 
tical grunt—“ but in the way of vulgar material riches 
I am confident that the value of what is in these jars 
is greater than that of all the gold together that we 
saw in the Valley of Aztlan. Without a shadow of 
doubt, you and I at this moment are standing in the 
midst of the most enormous treasure that ever has been 
brought together since the world was made!” 

“* Honest Injun, Professor ?” 

“Certainly,” I answered; “and if this is your no- 
tion of getting ‘left’ on a treasure-hunt,” I continued, 
“it assuredly is not mine.” 

“Left?” Young repeated after me, while his eyes 
ranged exultantly over the rows of jars in which this 
vast wealth was contained. ‘“ Well, I should smile! I 
take it all back about that old king bein’ crazy. He 
was just as level-headed as George Washington an’ 


EPILOGUE. 439 


Dan’l Webster rolled into one. These pots full of 
arrow-heads an’ such stuff was only one of his little 
jokes, showin’ that he must ’a’ been a good-natured, 
comical old cuss, th’ kind I always did like, anyway. 
Left? Not much we ain’t left! We’ve just everlast- 
in’ly got there with all four feet to onct! Professor, 
shake !” 


EPILOGUE. 


TuroucHout my whole life I have been saddened, 
as each well-defined section of it has come to an end, 
by the thought that during the period that has then 
slipped away from me forever I have wasted more 
opportunities than I have improved. As I write these 
final lines, therefore, I feel a sorrowful regret, which, 
in a way, is akin to the regret that weighed upon me 
when Young and I, having carried into the cave the 
contents of the treasure -chamber, removed the prop 
wherewith was upheld the swinging statue, and so suf- 
fered to fall into place again that ponderous mass of 
stone. From below, where we were, lifting it was im- 
possible; and by heaping fragments of rock under the 
forward end of it we presently made it equally im- 
movable from above. Thus for outlet or for inlet that 
way was irrevocably barred; and as I write now I know 
that I am not less irrevocably severing myself from 
one portion of my past. For, says the Persian poet, 
“A finished book is a sealed casket. To it nothing can 
be added. From it nothing can be taken away. There- 


440 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


fore should we pray to Allah that its contents may be 
good.” 

The record that I am now ending was begun partly 
that I might find in the writing of it relief from the 
more serious work in which I have been engaged, and 
partly because I perceived that I could properly in- 
clude in a personal narrative many matters which were 
too trivial or too entirely personal to be incorporated 
into my extended scientific treatise, but which, I was 
persuaded, were of a sufficient interest to be preserved. 
But I certainly should not have finished this history of 
our adventures nearly so expeditiously had not Ray- 
burn and Young taken a very lively interest in it, and 
pressed me constantly to bring it to an end. 

“You see, Professor,’ said Young, “I don’t want t’ 
say anything against that big book you're writin’. I 
don’t doubt that in its way it Il be a daisy; but you 
know yourself there won’t be more’n about three 
cranks in th’ whole o’ God’s universe who'll ever read 
more’n about ten lines of it; an’ that’s why I want 
you t’ rush ahead with th’ little book—that stands 
some chance o’ bein’ read outside o’ lunatic asylums— 
so’s folks “Il know what a powerful queer time we've 
had. Don’t be too cussed particular t’ say just where 
that valley is—for, while it’s not likely, we might want 
t? take a fightin’ crowd along an’ dynamite our way 
back there some day after more cash; but, exceptin’ 
that, just give ’em th’ cold facts. I reckon they'll 
make some folks open their eyes.” 

From time to time, as my narrative has grown be- 
heath my hand, I have read aloud to my fellow-advent- 


EPILOGUE. 441 


urers what I have written, and have received from 
them suggestions in accordance with which it has been 
corrected or amended in its several parts; and it is 
but just to add, in this connection, that in every case 
where I have referred (as it seems to me now in words 
not nearly strong enough) to the loyalty to our com- 
mon interests, and to the splendid bravery which Ray- 
burn and Young constantly exhibited throughout that 
trying time, I have been compelled to exert the whole 
of my authority over them in order to win their grum- 
bling permission that my words might stand. Even 
Pablo—for the love that there was between this boy 
and me was far too strong to permit me to leave him 
behind in Mexico, and we are like to live together as 
long as we live at all—has taken issue with me con- 
cerning what I have written of his steadfast faithful- 
ness and courage; and this on the ground that he could 
not possibly be anything but faithful to those whom 
he loved, and that it is only natural for a man to fight 
for his own life and for the lives of his friends. In 
thus applying the word hombre to himself Pablo spoke 
a little doubtfully, as though he feared that I might 
question his right to it; yet did he roll it so relishing- 
ly under his tongue, and so well had he proved his 
manliness, that I suffered it to pass. 

In point of fact, the only member of our party who 
has accepted my just tribute of praise with entire equa- 
nimity has been El Sabio. It was Pablo’s notion, of 
course, that El Sabio should hear what I had written 
about kim. ‘“ Not the whole of it, you know, sefior,” 
the boy said, earnestly; “‘for some of what you have 


449 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


written — while I know that it is true, and therefore 
must be told—would hurt his tender heart. It was 
not his fault—the angel!—that he gave us so much 
trouble when we swung him across the cafion; and to 
tell him that there was even a thought of eating him, 
while we were in that dreadful valley where every one 
was dead, assuredly would turn him gray before his 
time. No; we will hide all such unpleasant parts of 
the book from him; but we will read to him what you 
have said concerning his beauty and his wisdom—and, 
surely, you might have said of these a great deal more; 
and also about his gallant fight with the priests, when, 
all alone, he slew so many of them with his heels. And 
it would have been fairer to El Sabio, sefior,” Pablo 
added, a little reproachfully, as we walked out togeth- 
er to the paddock in which the ass, grown to be very 
fat, was living a life of most royal ease, “had you told 
in the book how well he served us in bringing all the 
treasure, In many weary journeys, out through that 
dismal cave; and also how carefully he carried the 
Sefior Rayburn down that steep mountain-side, and so 
to the little town beside the railway, and never hurt 
his wound.” . 

However, El Sabio did not seem to notice these omis- 
sions from my narrative, though he certainly did ex- 
hibit a most curious air of interest and understanding 
as I read to him those laudatory portions of it which 
Pablo desired that he should hear. According to Pab- 
lo’s understanding of his language, he even thanked 
me for speaking well of him; for when the reading 
was ended he thrust his nose far forward, laid his long 


EPILOGUE. 443 


ears back upon his neck, planted his little legs firmly, 
and as he erected in triumph his scrag of a tail, he ut- 
tered a most thunderous bray. “And now, Wise One,” 
Pablo said, tenderly, as he infolded the head of the ass 
in his arms and hugged it to his breast, “thou knowest 
that we not only love thee for thy goodness and thy 
wisdom, but that we also honor thee for thy noble 
deeds.” 

Rayburn’s fancy was mightily tickled by this per- 
formance in which El Sabio and Pablo and I had en- 
gaged—though Young evidently thought it but an- 
other proof of the addled state of my brains—when I 
told about it that evening as we all sat smoking com- 
fortably in my library before the open fire. This was 
to be our last meeting for some time to come; for Ray- 
burn was to start the next day for Idaho to look after 
some mining matters, and Young suddenly had decided 
that he would accompany him. In truth, Young was 
rather at a loss to know what to do with himself; for 
his plan for buying the Old Colony Railroad, in order 
to be in a position to discharge its superintendent, had 
been abandoned. ‘Id like t’ do it, of course,” he said. 
“Bouncin’ that chump th’ same way that he bounced 
me would do me a lot o’ good; but I’ve made up my 
mind it wouldn’t be th’ square thing t’ do, considerin’ 
that if he hadn’t bounced me I’d still be foolin’ round 
on top o’ freight-cars, in all sorts 0’ weather, handlin’ 
brakes. So I’ve let up on him, an’ he can stay. What 
I want now is t? do some good with this all-fired big 
pile o’ money that I’ve got. That’s one reason why 
I’m goin’ out with Rayburn t’ Idaho. Right straight 


444 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


along from here t’ Boisé City I mean t’ set up drinks 
for every railroader I meet. That'll be doin’ good, for 
sure.” 

Rayburn and I laughed a little at this odd method 
for benefiting humanity that Young had got hold of; 
and then Rayburn’s face grew grave as he said: ‘ Well, 
we're doing a little good, I suppose, in putting that old 
church in Morelia in good shape. I’m glad you thought 
of that, Professor. I don’t suppose that anything we 
could have done would have pleased the Padre more 
than to have that church, that he loved so much, made 
as handsome as money can make it all the way through.” 

“Yes,” Young added, “an’ I guess th’ Professor’s 
head was level in havin’ all th’ new stuff that we’ve 
put in it made t’ look like ’t was about two hundred 
years old., I did kick at that at first, Pll allow. What 
I wanted t’ do was t’ build a first-class new church, 
with a rattlin’ tall steeple, an’ steam heat, an’ electric 
lights, an’ an organ big enough t’ bust the roof off ev- 
ery time she was played. But th’ Padre was as keen 
as th’ Professor, a’most, for old-fashioned things; an’ 
so I guess we’ve done that job just about as he’d ’a’ 
done it himself. It makes me feel queer, though, put- 
tin? up money on a Catholic church that way; an’ 
when I was tellin’ an old aunt 0’ mine, down t’ Milton, 
about it, she just riz up an’ rared. An’ she didn’t feel 
a bit better when I told her that if I thought it ud 
please th’ Padre t’ have me do it, ’d go smack off t’ 
Rome an’ shake hands with th’ Pope. And I truly 
would do that very same thing,” Young continued, 
earnestly, while his voice trembled a little, “for this 


EPILOGUE. 445 


side o’ heaven I never expect t’ meet anybody that’s 
so near t’ bein’ a first-class angel as th’ Padre was. 
An’ when I think how he saved our mis’rable lives for 
us, as he surely did, by givin’ awav his own—that was 
worth more’n all of ours put together, an’ ten times 
over—I don’t care a continental what his religious pol- 
itics was ; an’ I'll punch th’ head of anybody who don’t 
say that he was th’ pluckiest an’ th’ best man that ever 
lived !” 

Pablo had caught the word Padre in Young’s talk, 
and as the lad looked up from the corner in which he 
was sitting, I saw that his eyes were full of tears; Ray- 
burn’s eyes also had an odd glistening look about them 
as he turned away suddenly, and emptied the ashes 
from his pipe into the fire; and I know that I could 
not see very clearly just then, as very tender, yet very 
poignant memories surged suddenly into my heart. 

And when the others left me—as they did presently, 
for we could not fall again into commonplace talk—I 
bade Pablo be off to bed, and so sat there for a while 
alone. What I had planned to do that night was to 
revise an address that I was shortly to deliver before 
the Archxological Institute; but the pen that I had 
taken into my hand lay idle there, while my thoughts 
went backward through tne channels of the past. 

In that still season of darkness [ seemed to live again 
through all the time that Fray Antonio and I had been 
together—from the moment when I first caught sight 
of him, as he knelt before the crucifix in the sacristy, 
to my last sad look at the dead body whence his soul 
had sped back again to God. 


446 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. 


As my thoughts dwelt upon this most loving and 
most tender companionship, the like of which for per- 
fectness I am confident was never known, and then 
upon the cruel violence that brought it to an end, so 
searching a pain went through my soul that I knew 
that either it must cease or I must die of it in a very 
little while. And then was borne in upon me the 
strong conviction—and so has it since been always, 
when thus my thoughts have been engaged—that be- 
cause of my very love for Fray Antonio must I rejoice 
that he had died so savage a death; believing confi- 
dently that what he prayed for when first I found him 
in the Christian church of San Francisco was, in truth, 
that very crown of martyrdom that God granted to 
him when at last I lost him in the heathen city of 
Colhuacan. And with the pressing in upon me thus 
strangely of this strange thought, it seemed as though 
he himself said again to me, “I go to win the life, 
glorious and eternal, into which neither death nor sin 
nor sorrow evermore can come.” 


THE END. 


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